At a congress in Berlin, the Western powers divide the Balkans in the aftermath of the defeat of the Ottoman Empire by Russia that January. Under the Treaty of San Stefano, signed that March, Bulgaria received territory as far west as central Albania and Serbia took the northern part of Kosova. Western countries refuse to accept this settlement, and instead return Kosova and Macedonia to the Ottomans, Serbia gets only the area north of Nis, and Bulgaria’s territory also shrinks. Montenegro gets northern parts of the future Albania, including Peja, Ulqin, Pllava, Guci, Hot, Gruda, Tivar, Vermosh, Kelmend, Kraja, and Anamal, which had been part of Kosova under the Ottomans. This division angers Albanian leaders and sows hostility between Albanians and Serbs. According to Albanian scholar and diplomat Paulin Kola, Albanian anger comes from the way the congress exposes its powerlessness and divides the Balkans without concern for the ethnicity of its inhabitants. The settlement also sparks ethnic cleansing. According to Kola, up to 50,000 Albanians are expelled from Kosova, as government policy. Serbs are also expelled, but this is localized. Kola will come to believe fewer were expelled than the Serbian academic figure of 150,000, which is about the total Serb population of Kosova at this time. [Kola, 2003, pp. 8-9]

A convention of the League of Prizren, meeting in Diber, votes to demand autonomy within the Ottoman Empire. The League formed on June 10, 1878, along with defense committees responding to the Berlin Congress, which had divided the Albanian population among different countries. The demands include the creation of an administrative unit encompassing all Albanian areas, with a centrally located capital, local administrators and Albanian as the language of government, the use of local taxes for local needs, the creation of schools, and the creation of an elected legislature. These demands will later be approved by an assembly in the city of Gjirokastra on July 23, 1880. [Kola, 2003, pp. 9]

An Albanian government is declared under Omer Prizreni at Prizren. This comes about because the Ottomans refuse to grant Albanian autonomy, so the League of Prizren forms a parallel government and removes Ottoman officials. Earlier, the Ottomans had considered creating an Albanian unit, including Albania, Kosova, Macedonia, and Bulgarian areas, as a counterweight to Slavic demands. After the declaration, the Ottoman military restores control and the League’s leader Abdyl Frasheri is arrested in Elbasan and taken to Prizren in shackles. He will be sentenced to death, but, after three years of imprisonment there, he will be moved to Anatolia. However, he will also be elected to the Ottoman parliament. This mirrors the sentences given to other Albanian leaders. [Kola, 2003, pp. 9-10]

Future president Theodore Roosevelt, writing about the use of waterboarding as an interrogation method during the Spanish-American War, defends the practice. “The enlisted men began to use the old Filipino method: the water cure” (see 1800 and After), he writes in a letter. “Nobody was seriously damaged.” During the war, a US soldier, Major Edwin Glenn, was suspended and fined by an Army court-martial for waterboarding a prisoner. The Army judge advocate wrote that the charges constituted a “resort to torture with a view to extort a confession.” He recommended disapproval because “the United States cannot afford to sanction the addition of torture.” [National Public Radio, 11/3/2007]

A series of Albanian revolts between 1908 and 1912 ends when the Ottoman government accepts the Albanians’ 14 demands for autonomy. Albanian Ottoman legislator Hasan Prishtina leads the autonomy movement. The Albanian leadership, especially in northern Albania and Kosova, earlier supported the Young Turk movement, but this resulted in less autonomy, more taxes, and continuing military conscription, so Albanians revolted. Neighboring Slavic governments see the Ottoman concession as a sign of weakness, and subsequently invade the Ottoman Empire. [Kola, 2003, pp. 10-11]

The provisional government of North Epirus, led by J Zographos, a former foreign minister of Greece, is formed in southern Albania. In response, Albania gives more rights to Albanian Greeks. Subsequently, Greece occupies the area around Berat and Korca. [Kola, 2003, pp. 16]

Italy and Austria-Hungary nominate German prince Wilhelm zu Wied to rule Albania. Soon after he arrives on March 7, 1914 and creates a government, revolts start in central Albania against minister Esad Pasha Toptani and interference by other countries. [Kola, 2003, pp. 16]

The Committee for the National Defense of Kosova (Komiteti i Mbrojte Kombetare e Kosoves) is created in Shkodra, under Hasan Prishtina. Kosovars under Azem Bejta-Galica begin armed struggle, known as the Kachak (outlaw) movement. The Committee asks the Kachaks not to mistreat or rob Slavic inhabitants or destroy their property. At the same time, some Serbs continue to mistreat Albanians. The Kachaks are popular among Albanians, and support will increase in 1920 when Prishtina becomes a member of Albania’s parliament, Hoxhe Kadriu becomes minister of justice, and Bajram Curri becomes minister of war. All three are Kosovar Albanians. [Kola, 2003, pp. 18-19]

With Yugoslav support, Mirdita, a predominantly Catholic area northeast of Tirana, declares independence under Mark Gjoni. Under an agreement with Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia would represent the Republic of Mirdita diplomatically. The Mirditans attempt to occupy part of northern Albania with Yugoslav help, but are defeated by Albanian Minister of the Interior Ahmet Zog. [Kola, 2003, pp. 19]

Three years after Britain declared victory in Iraq (see 1917), their occupational forces are locked in fierce fighting with an Iraqi insurgency that had grown up in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. The British begin a campaign of aerial bombing against Fallujah and Baghdad, and heavy urban assaults in Samarra. [Kolb, 2007, pp. 94]

British generals announce that the insurgency in Iraq (see Early 1920) has been defeated. But former British Army intelligence officer T. E. Lawrence—“Lawrence of Arabia”—disagrees, in a dispatch published by the London Times. “The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor,” Lawrence writes. “Things have been far worse than we have told. We are today not far from a disaster.” Lawrence knows the insurgents—indeed, he had helped train them in the techniques of guerrilla warfare. [Kolb, 2007, pp. 94]

After being unseated by a coalition under Bishop Fan Noli, and supported by Bajram Curri, former prime minister and future king Ahmet Zog stages a successful coup with Yugoslav money and personnel. In return for their support, Zog supports Yugoslav control of Kosova. [Vickers, 1998, pp. 100; Kola, 2003, pp. 20]

The German Reich Ministry of Justice issues a secret memo following a meeting of several Justice Ministry lawyers and public prosecutors with senior Gestapo officers. The participants discuss the fact that Germany has been on a war footing for years, and the leaders’ worry that the citizenry is riddled with sleeper cells of subversives. The solution: detaining and torturing subversives. It is unclear whether torture will be used to terrorize other subversives, to extract information, or produce confessions. German law enforcement officials are balky at applying “more rigorous interrogation” techniques. Though some judges seem unmoved by defendants appearing in court with obvious marks of torture upon their bodies, the law enforcement officers are bureaucrats in a system that has always respected the rule of law and the Hitler government was originally elected on a law-and-order platform. The memo is the product of the top officials in the Gestapo and Justice Ministry, and lays out detailed instructions as to when torture techniques can be applied, the specific equipment used in such interrogations, and how many times particular techniques could be used on certain categories of detainees. Perhaps most importantly, the memo promises immunity from prosecution to any German interrogator who follows the rules as laid down in the memo. Specific Instructions - It reads in part: “At present, we thus have a situation which cannot continue: a deficient sense of what is right on the part of judicial officers; an undignified position for police officers, who try to help matters by foolish denials [that torture has taken place in court proceedings].… [I]nterrogations of this kind [torture] may be undertaken in cases where charges involve the immediate interests of the state.… chiefly treason and high treason. Representatives of the Gestapo expressed the opinion that a more rigorous interrogation could also be considered in cases of Jehovah’s Witnesses, explosives, and sabotage.… As a general principle, in more rigorous interrogations only blows with a club on the buttocks are permissible, up to 25 such blows. The number is to be determined in advance by the Gestapo.… Beginning with the tenth blow, a physician must be present. A standard club will be designated, to eliminate all irregularities.” Gestapo Headquarters in Berlin must give permission for more “rigorous interrogation[s],” the memo continues. Drawing Parallels to Bush Administration Torture - The memo will be the subject of a 2009 article by Shayana Kadidal, the senior managing attorney of the Guantanamo project at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Kadidal will draw parallels between the Nazi torture authorization and similar legal justifications issued by the American government after the 9/11 attacks (see March 2, 2009 and April 21, 2009). Kadidal will write: “I realize that, as a matter of principle, there is a strong bias against making Nazi analogies to any events happening in our modern world.… But here we have: (1) a system set up to allow torture on certain specific individual detainees, (2) specifying standardized equipment for the torture (apparently down to the exact length of the club to be used), along with physician participation to ensure survival of the victim for the more several applications, (3) requiring prior approval of the use of torture from the central authorities in the justice department and intelligence agency in the capital, so as to ensure that (6) the local field officers actually carrying out the abuse are immune from prosecution.” [Huffington Post, 4/21/2009]

Italy occupies Albania, with 50,000 soldiers, 173 ships, and 600 bombers, facing some Albanian civilian volunteers and regular soldiers. The ruling family escapes to Greece and then the UK, though King Zog I does not abdicate. Early on the Italians face resistance from 15,000 Albanians along the coast at Durres, Vlora, Saranda, and Shengjin, as well as inland. Later, 3,000 guerillas seek refugee in the mountains and political resistance begins. Under Italian control, the Constituent Assembly soon proclaims the union of Albania with Italy and invites Italian King Emmanuel III to rule Albania. [Hoxha, 1974, pp. 593-595; Kola, 2003, pp. 22]

In accord with the Vienna pact, Germany takes Trepca for its mines, as well as the Lab, Vucitrn, and Dezevo (Novi Pazar) districts, creating a territory called the Kosovo Department. Security forces composed of, and led by, Albanians are formed—a gendarmerie of about 1,000 and about 1,000 irregulars, called the Vulnetara. Bulgaria annexes the Gnjilane, Kacanik, and Vitin districts. Italy takes much of Kosovo and the towns of Debar, Tetovo, Gostivar, and Struga, about 11,780 square kilometers and 820,000 people. In May this area is merged with Albania, occupied by Italy on April 7, 1939. Albanian forces are raised by the Italian army, Albanian is spoken in government and education for the first time, and the Albanian flag flies in Italian Kosovo. Albanians are able to freely travel through Albanian areas. Serbs and Montenegrins are imprisoned, deported for forced labor, or killed by occupation forces. Many are deported to Pristina and Mitrovica to labor in the mines of Trepca, or to Albania for construction. According to Serbs, Albanian attacks, generally against settlers, force about 10,000 Slavic families to leave Kosovo. Collaboration and resistance groups form throughout the occupied Balkans. [Vickers, 1998, pp. 121-122; Kola, 2003, pp. 22-23]

Abaz Kupi, a supporter of deposed former Albanian King Zog, begins to lead an armed struggle against the occupation of Albania. This is the first armed action since the initial resistance when the Italians invaded in 1939. [Kola, 2003, pp. 27-28]

The Communist Party of Albania (CPA) is created at a conference of the main Albanian communist organizations, the Korca Group, Shkodra Group, and Youth Group. There are 15 Albanian communists and two members of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia at the meeting. A few months earlier, communist operative Dusan Mugosa arrived in Albania seeking help in liberating Miladin Popovic, a Montenegrin who leads the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) for Kosova, from an internment camp set up by Italian forces in central Albania. Korca Group member Enver Hoxha led the successful rescue attempt and Popovic was asked to remain in Albania and the CPY agreed, also stationing Mugosa there. The CPA is formed on November 8 and a leaderless Provisional Central Committee is elected. The CPA pledges “to fight for the national independence of the Albanian people and for a people’s democratic government in an Albania free from fascism,” by armed struggle, united with “all the honest Albanians who want to fight fascism,” and promoting “love and close militant collaboration” with neighboring nationalities. The role of the CPY in creating the CPA will become an issue of contention. CPY sources and anti-communists will claim the CPA is created and run by Popovic. Hoxha will later say there is no interparty communication until 1942 and that Popovic will deny credit for the CPA in 1943 when Blazo Jovanovic, representing the Central Committee of the CPY, claims the CPY created it. On the other hand, CPA Political Bureau member Liri Gega will later say Popovic led the CPA, and member Pandi Kristo will say the two Yugoslavs created the CPA. Gega and Kristo will be in the pro-CPY faction after the war and lose their positions when Albania breaks with Yugoslavia. Koco Tashko, leader of the Korca Group, will later say he turned leadership of his organization over to Mugosa and Popovic. The CPA will later be re-named the Party of Labor of Albania. [Kola, 2003, pp. 25-27]

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia and Greece sign an agreement to coordinate their foreign policy, defense, and economies after World War II. Britain supports the plan, and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden advocates including Albania and Bulgaria. Britain will oppose the plan by late 1944, because of the success of communist-led partisan armies in the region. [Kola, 2003, pp. 83-84]

The Communist Party of Albania (CPA) organizes a conference in Peza, near Tirana, including nationalists, local leaders, Abaz Kupi representing former King Zog, the Communist Youth Organization, and female youth delegates. The conference elects a non-sectarian (Provisional) General National Liberation Council, and local councils to carry out government functions in liberated areas and organize guerrilla activities are planned. Nationalist guerrillas agree to fly the CPA’s red and black flag with a red star, as well as the Albanian double-headed eagle flag. Two months later, Yugoslav communist leader Josip Broz Tito will write to the CPA for the first time, saying the National Liberation Front should be re-formed with “different urban groups and tendencies” to broaden it. According to a Yugoslav source, in 1944 CPA leader Enver Hoxha will refer to the letter as “an historic event,” but in his 1982 memoir, The Titoites, he says the letter was too late to matter. [Kola, 2003, pp. 27-28]

The Balli Kombetar (National Front) party is created under Mit’hat Frasheri and advocates a united Albania, including the Kosovars. A British representative to Albania during WWII, Julian Amery, will say the Ballists are “for ideological reasons, inclined towards the Western democracies, but their enthusiasm for the allied cause was severely constrained both by hatred of communism and by fears that an allied victory might once again deprive them of Kosovo as well as their southern provinces.” The Balli Kombetar includes former government members, and the Communist Party of Albania will later accuse it of being a cover for the parliamentarians who had agreed to offer Albania to Italy’s Emmanuel III after it was invaded, among other charges. [Kola, 2003, pp. 29-31]

In an article, “The National Question in Yugoslavia in the Light of the National Liberation Struggle,” published in the newspaper Proleter, communist partisan leader Josip Broz Tito writes: “The question of Macedonia, the question of Kosovo and Metohija, the question of Montenegro, the question of Croatia, the question of Bosnia-Herzegovina will easily be solved to the general satisfaction of all only if resolved by the people themselves, and this right each people will win gun in hand, in the present national liberation struggle.… The words ‘National Liberation Struggle’ would be a mere phrase, or even a deception, if they did not, in addition to the all-Yugoslav meaning, have a national significance for each people separately.” This contrasts with Tito’s developing view that Yugoslavia’s territorial integrity should be preserved after the war, instead of allowing self-determination for each nationality. [Kola, 2003, pp. 47-48]

Through communist leader Miladin Popovic, the Communist Party of Albania (CPA) tells the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) that it has a mistaken policy in Kosova and the Dukagjin Plateau and needs to allow the region to have “its own leadership, emerged from the war, of which the majority must at all costs consist of Albanians; they should have their own national liberation council, the composition of which should not be dictated.” The CPA also says Kosova should have its own partisan organization, under the Yugoslav General Staff. Also, the CPA wants the CPY to “clearly and frankly” tell Kosovars that, after the occupiers are driven out, “they, like the others, will enjoy the complete and undeniable right to self-determination up the secession.” The CPY refuses to change its position and communist leader Josip Broz Tito says the proposals “would in fact gratify the enemies of the Marxist-Leninist struggle in Yugoslavia and all the reactionary and fascist cliques, which are wanting to wrest piece by piece from the democratic movement of the peoples of Yugoslavia by bringing to the foreground not the question of fighting the enemy but delimitation, national antagonisms, etc.” [Kola, 2003, pp. 50-51]

The Communist Party of Yugoslavia advocates national independence in the anti-fascist struggle, and puts off questions of unification until peace is established. Scholar Branka Magas will later analyze this decision as reflecting British opposition to a Balkan union and concerns that the Allies might land and try to divide Yugoslavia into a communist west and capitalist east. [Kola, 2003, pp. 84]

Following an initial meeting on July 23 in Zall i Herrit, representatives of the National Liberation Council meet with the Balli Kombetar leadership at Mukje, Kruja district, on August 1 and 2. CPA Political Bureau member Ymer Dishnica leads a 12-member delegation, including non-communists Abaz Kupi and Myslim Peza. The Ballist delegation includes their chair, Mit-hat Frasheri. According to Enver Hoxha, the NLC delegation is told that unity must be based on the Balli Kombetar fighting the occupation and not continuing to fight the NLC’s forces or the CPA, then there could be “a broad conference to lay on the table and discuss many problems concerning unity.” Hoxha’s goal is to persuade the Balli Kombetar to fight the Italians and join the NLC, at the same time preventing it from being a rival military and political force. The result of the meeting is a plan to create a Committee for the Salvation of Albania, with each side having six representatives, by August 8. The Committee is to lead the guerrilla war until an independent, democratic, and “ethnic Albania” (including Albanian areas left out of the 1913 borders) is established. The Committee plans to dissolve when a provisional government is established. An election with universal suffrage is planned, to establish a constitutional assembly to determine Albania’s post-liberation government. During this time, Mussolini’s government loses power in Italy, so the delegates also call for a declaration of independence. Each side signs, with final approval pending from their organizations, and a proclamation signed by the Committee and the Ballists, and not mentioning the NLC or fascism, is released. The NLC rejects the agreement. Hoxha later says “Our comrades [at Mukje] did not know how to defend the line of the National Liberation Front, but fell right into the lap of the ‘Balli Kombetar‘… what they talked about there was ‘independent Albania’ and ‘ethnic Albania,’ and the war of today was forgotten.” He sees the proclamation of independence as a Ballist grab for credit and a way to “blot out April 12, 1939, because three quarters of the Ballists had recognized the Accord of the Crown [giving it to Italy], while we had never recognized it.” Yugoslav sources claim Hoxha tries to prevent open armed struggle with the Balli Kombetar. Miladin Popovic reportedly says: “[T]his union [with the Ballists] cannot be accepted. We are being strengthened with each passing day.… Then, this ethnic Albania! Impossible!” Dishnica claims that he acts at Mukje on directives from the CPA leadership. Subsequently, Abaz Kupi abandons the NLC and creates the Legaliteti, arguing that Zog is Albania’s legitimate leader. [Hoxha, 1974, pp. 172-189; Kola, 2003, pp. 41-44]

A second Albanian National Liberation Conference is held and publicly states that the Mukje agreement (see August 1-2, 1943) is “an act that violated the fundamental principles of the Peza Conference and ran counter to the interests of the war and the unity of the Albanian people.” It also decides “to take a clear stand against [the pro-western Balli Kombetar], to expose its anti-national and anti-people policy.” The Ballists are accused of undermining the National Liberation Movement by calling it “a Communist movement,” fanning chauvinism by saying Serbia and Greece are threats, and obstructing the national liberation war. They allow the possibility of cooperation, as long as the Ballists “participate in the uncompromising and relentless war against the invaders” and agree that the national liberation councils are “the sole people’s power.” The Conference states that the way to self-determination for Kosova and Cameria, an Albanian-inhabited region in Greece, is through the national liberation war. The Conference also increases the General Council from the seven representatives elected at Peza to 62, creates rules with the goal of making the NLC into Albania’s legitimate government, and integrates new anti-fascist organizations, such as the Anti-fascist Youth Union. [PLA, 1971, pp. 169-172; Kola, 2003, pp. 57]

Italy surrenders to the Allies, but the Italian commander in Albania tells his forces to surrender to the German military. About 15,000 surrender to the Albanians, and about 1,500 are organized into the “Antonio Gramsci” Battalion of the 1st Storm Brigade of the Albanian National Liberation Army. Meanwhile, about 70,000 German soldiers invade Albania. According to the official PLA history, the Germans say they are liberating Albania from Italy and that they will protect Albanian independence in exchange for Albania joining their anti-communist war. [PLA, 1971, pp. 173-174]

Communist leader Fadil Hoxha proposes that the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) use the name Dukagjin Plateau instead of Metohija for the western part of Kosovo, that Partisan operations in the region be split between a Kosova committee under Serb leadership and a Dukagjin Plateau committee under Albanian leadership, and that a conference be held to elect a Kosova and Dukagjin Plateau national liberation council. The Regional Committee of the CPY for Kosova approves the plan, but the CPY leadership rejects it. They say the region “is not a separate, compact region,” so it does not need a “provincial committee,” and they want “to avoid strife over ‘all sorts of demarcations.’” [Kola, 2003, pp. 51-52]

The Second Session of the Anti-Fascist Council of the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) releases a statement saying, “The peoples of Yugoslavia… proved in the course of the joint armed struggle their firm determination to remain united within Yugoslavia” and that, while “national minorities in Yugoslavia shall be ensured all national rights,” liberated Yugoslavia will be an equal federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia, without an Albanian republic or a statement that Kosova will be able to secede if it wishes. The Yugoslav communist party’s Kosova Regional Committee subsequently acts as if it is ignorant of the AVNOJ declaration, and Albanian communist leader Enver Hoxha will later claim the CPA is never informed. [Kola, 2003, pp. 52, 56]

Communist leader Josip Broz Tito places the Partisan general staff of the Kosova region under the Serb general staff. Author Paulin Kola will later call this “the clearest indication yet of his plans to incorporate postwar Kosova into Serbia.” [Kola, 2003, pp. 56]

For most of the war, Britain ignores Albania, and does not recognize a government in exile under Ahmet Zog. Albanian communist leader Enver Hoxha will later say that Greece would have considered such a move a hostile act by the British. By 1942 at the latest, the British expected a Balkan Federation of Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Yugoslavia to be formed after liberation. The War Office sends a memo to an office in Bari, Italy, in 1944 admitting that Britain cannot stop the partisans from winning political power and seeking Soviet assistance, so, “We must therefore aim at strengthening our position with partisans now in order that after the war we may be able to influence the partisan government.” By this point, envoys from the Special Operations Executive division, as well as some American envoys, are with the major Albanian political groups and they are receiving British aid. The envoys to the Partisans accept the War Office’s decision, but those with other groups believe more should have been done, up to a British or American landing in the fall of 1944 as happened in Greece. British army officer Julian Amery will later write: “Firstly, it was wrong to abandon the Albanians to Hoxha’s evil regime and Stalin’s imperial designs. Secondly, [Vlora] and [Sazan Island] control the Strait of Otranto, the entrance to the Adriatic, an important naval gateway.” [Kola, 2003, pp. 67-70]

The Third and Fifth Brigades of the Albanian National Liberation Army enter Kosova to fight the Germans. They will later be sent north, which Albanian communist leader Enver Hoxha will say allows “unrestrained mass terror against the Albanians” by Yugoslav Partisans. Others say that as many as 30,000 Albanian soldiers aid the Yugoslavs in fighting Albanian nationalists. [Prifti, 1978, pp. 197-199; Kola, 2003, pp. 61-62]

Communist official Velimir Stoinic arrives to lead the Yugoslav military mission to Albania’s general staff and to represent the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. He immediately recalls Miladin Popovic back to Yugoslavia. Popovic is blamed for alleged mistakes by the Communist Party of Albania (CPA), such as the Mukje agreement with the Balli Kombetar and statements that Yugoslavia will allow Kosova to determine its future. He also says the CPA’s policies are wrong and that the leadership must change. The CPA will later accuse Stoinic of conspiring with a pro-Yugoslav faction against leading Albanian communist Enver Hoxha so Yugoslavia can take control of Albania. [PLA, 1971, pp. 227; Kola, 2003, pp. 58]

Following the liberation of Yugoslavia, the Community Party of Yugoslavia resumes support for a Balkan federation, excluding Greece, which is in Britain’s sphere of influence. The Soviet Union pushes Yugoslav-Bulgarian coordination as the first step, which some see as an attempt to increase Soviet influence over Yugoslavia through more pro-Soviet Bulgaria. Yugoslavia sends Eduard Kardelj to Bulgaria in November, but Velimir Stoinic also brings up unification at the Second Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Albania this month in the southern Albanian town of Berat. [Kola, 2003, pp. 84]

The British envoys to the Partisans oppose the fighting between the Partisans and other groups, and threaten to cut off military aid to the Partisans. A circular from the Central Committee of the CPA to local groups says “the British mission is attempting to revive and reinforce the reactionary movement against the national liberation movement,” and “they should in no way be regarded as arbiters” and will be deported if they interfere in internal affairs. Rumors begin to circulate as early as September that an Allied army will land in Albania, and local communists are told to make sure any Allied force finds the National Liberation Council and Army “as the sole state power.” There are also fears of a government in exile or a government created after a landing. In response, the British and American envoys are watched and not allowed to roam at large. [PLA, 1971, pp. 181 -182; Hoxha, 1974, pp. 193 - 195; Kola, 2003, pp. 69-70]

The Central Committee of the CPA convenes at Berat for its Second Plenum, along with CPY representative Velimir Stoinic. Sejfulla Maleshova and Pandi Kristo become CC members just before the meeting, apparently in a way that violates party rules. Along with organizational secretary Koci Xoxe, they are later accused of conspiring with Stoinic to attack the CPA. Some charges are that the CPA is not communist and that it acts both sectarian and opportunist. Liri Gega is removed from the Central Committee “for sectarianism and pronounced adventurism,” and those individual charges are said to come from the entire party’s policy. Maleshova says the CPA is becoming a terrorist “band of criminals,” for actions like the execution of Mustafa Gjinishi, one of the CPA’s representatives at the Mukje meeting. Xoxe says “a gang of four,” starting with Miladin Popovic, lead the CPA. Stoinic also criticizes the CPA and says: “You are small, a good bite for imperialism. You can’t hold power without Yugoslavia, especially present-day Yugoslavia.” Therefore, the two countries should have close links: “Their exact shape cannot be revealed at this conference, but let the link be confederal or closer than that. This is your perspective, this is what you should inculcate in people’s minds.” This is the first time the CPY’s wish to join the two countries is mentioned in public. Stoinic also says Tito should be praised more. Relying on documents published after capitalism is restored in Albania, Paulin Kola will later say that Hoxha and the rest of the CPA completely accepted the criticisms, and that Hoxha also blamed Popovic and Dusan Mugosa of the CPY, but Hoxha’s memoirs say that he rejected the charges against the CPA. The Central Committee is also enlarged by 18 at the Berat Plenum. [PLA, 1971, pp. 227-231; Kola, 2003, pp. 58-61]

Enver Hoxha, as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Democratic Government of Albania, writes to the UK, USSR, and USA seeking formal recognition. In part he says: “Now that Albania is liberated, the Democratic Government of Albania is the sole representative of Albania both at home and abroad.… Today the authority of our government extends over all regions of Albania, and over the entire Albanian people.” He reiterates Albania’s dedication to “the great cause of the anti-fascist bloc,” and the government’s “democratic principles” and defense of “the rights of man.” A few months later Yugoslavia will recognize the Hoxha government, along with the USSR and Poland, but it will be years before the UK and USA do so. [Hoxha, 1974, pp. 413-416]

Yugoslavia installs a military government in Kosova, to fight what communist leader Josip Broz Tito says are members of the pro-western Balli Kombetar movement, “initially numbering one thousand men.” The Kosova Committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party and the National Liberation Council of Kosova are left in place. The government is led by Colonel Savo Drljevic and Commissar Djura Medenica. [Kola, 2003, pp. 61]

Two Albanians and a Serb serving in the presidency of the National Liberation Council of Kosova are killed, and five new members are appointed, all Serbs and Montenegrins. The presidency now has 11 members, five of whom are Albanians. [Kola, 2003, pp. 62]

Albania is allowed to participate in the Paris Peace Conference, regarding the post-war settlements between the Allies and Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Finland, but is not a full participant, instead being classed with Austria. The Albanian government argues that it was a full member of the Allied effort, fielding 70,000 Albanian Partisans, including 6,000 women, against around 100,000 Italians and 70,000 Germans. It says Italy and Germany suffered 53,639 casualties and prisoners and lost 100 armored vehicles, 1,334 artillery pieces, 1,934 trucks, and 2,855 machine guns destroyed or taken in Albania. Out of its population of one million, Albania says 28,000 were killed, 12,600 wounded, 10,000 were political prisoners, and 35,000 were made to do forced labor. Albania says 850 out of 2,500 of its communities were destroyed by the war. Disputed by Greece - To oppose Albania’s demands, Greece argues that Albania is at war with it. Greece also claims Gjirokastra and Korca, south of the Shkumbin River, and there is some fighting along the border. By 11 votes to seven, with two abstentions, the conference votes to discuss Greece’s territorial claims. Italian King Victor Emmanuel III blames Albania for the invasion of Greece, and Greece points to a declaration of war by the Albanian occupation government after Daut Hoxha was found murdered at the border in summer 1940. Hoxha's Address - Enver Hoxha addresses the conference. He points to hundreds of Albanians conscripted by Italy who deserted or joined the Greeks, who then treated them as POWs. Many were later sent to Crete and joined British forces who landed there. Others joined the Albanian Partisans or were captured by Italy, court-martialed for “high treason,” and imprisoned in the Shijak concentration camp. There are other cases of attacks on Italian forces by Albanian soldiers. Hoxha also mentions attacks on Albania by Greeks, such as the over 50 homes in Konispol burned by German soldiers guided by a captain under Greek collaborationist General Napoleon Zervas on September 8, 1943. His forces also joined German forces in their winter 1943-44 Albanian offensive. They invaded and burned again in June 1944. Hoxha refutes Greek claims that Albania is treading on the rights of the Greek minority, which Albania numbers at 35,000. There are 79 schools using Greek, one secondary school, autonomous Greek local government, and Greeks in the government and military. Between 1913 and 1923, Hoxha claims there were 60,000 Albanians in Greece, 35,000 of whom were classified as Turks and deported to Turkey in exchange for Turkish Greeks. In June 1944 and March 1945 Zervas’ forces attacked Greek Albanians, and at least 20,000 fled to Albania. Hoxha will later say that what Albania terms the “monarcho-fascist” Greek government commits 683 military provocations against Albania from its founding to October 15, 1948. Hoxha claims the Greek prime minister tells a Yugoslav official at the Peace Conference that he is open to dividing Albania with Yugoslavia, but Yugoslavia refuses. Hoxha tells the conference, “We solemnly declare that within our present borders there is not one square inch of foreign soil, and we will never permit anyone to encroach upon them, for to us they are sacred.” Italy is accused of harboring Albanian and Italian war criminals, including “fascists” who assassinated an Albanian sergeant at the Allied Mediterranean High Command in Bari in March. The Italian politicians are accused of threatening Albania during recent elections. In conclusion, Hoxha asks that the Peace Conference further limit Italy’s post-war military, claims Italy committed 3,544,232,626 gold francs worth of damage in Albania, and Albania wants to be classified as an “associated power.” US, British Opposition - These requests are opposed by the UK and US. Albania afterward considers its share of the reparations to be too low. The UK and US will later oppose Albanian participation in the Moscow conference on peace with Germany, held in March-April 1947. An American delegate will say: “We are of the opinion that, first, Albania is not a neighbor of Germany, and second, it did not take part in the war against Germany. Only some individual Albanians, perhaps, took part in this war, but apart from this there were also Albanians who fought side by side with the Germans.” [PLA, 1971, pp. 258; Hoxha, 1974, pp. 539-542, 593-614; Hoxha, 1975, pp. 90-91, 99]

In what Albania considers another Anglo-American plot to prepare the way for intervention, about 450 counterrevolutionaries organized in three forces again assault the city of Shkodra in northwest Albania. The attack is defeated by the military within hours, killing 33 rebels. Eight leaders are tried in a military court and shot, and 200 others are tried, but some are later released. The government also links the attack to an anti-government group in the legislature. [Hoxha, 1975, pp. 83, 103]

A press conference in Paris announces the formation of a National Unity Committee, which includes the Balli Kombetar (National Front), represented by Mit’hat Frasheri, the Legaliteti (Legality), represented by Abaz Kupi, and former King Zog. There is more counter-revolutionary guerilla activity in Yugoslavia than in Albania, which the Yugoslavs attribute to Ballists. After Albania’s break with Yugoslavia the year before, the British and American governments decide to focus on Albania in their plans to use nationalism to end Soviet influence in eastern Europe. They want to do this without revealing their involvement and avoiding another Greek invasion of Albania. Therefore they deny involvement in the formation of the National Unity Committee and the US government says the National Unity Committee is a subcommittee of the Committee for Free Europe. [Kola, 2003, pp. 97-99]

One of a number of semi-official ‘Christian Identity’ logos. [Source: KingIdentity (.com)]The “Christian Identity” theology, formerly a fairly benign expression of what is known as “British-Israelism” or “Anglo-Israelism,” begins to spread throughout the US and Canada, particularly on the west coasts of these nations. This belief holds that white Americans and Canadians are the real descendants of the Biblical tribes of Israel. In 2003, author Nicole Nichols, an expert on far-right racist and religious groups in America, will define the concept of “Christian Identity” as practiced by many white supremacist and separatist groups. Christian Identity is not an organization, she will write, but an ideology that many organizations have adopted in some form or fashion. Christian Identity “elevates white supremacy and separatism to a Godly ideal,” she will write, calling it “the ideological fuel that fires much of the activity of the racist far right.” According to Christian Identity theology, Jews are neither the “true Israelites” nor the true “chosen people” of God; instead, Christian Identity proponents claim, Jews are descended from an Asiatic people known as the Khazars, who settled near the Black Sea during the Middle Ages. [Nicole Nichols, 2003; Anti-Defamation League, 2005; Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, 5/30/2006] In 2005, the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance will write, “Followers tend to be involved in political movements opposing gun control, equal rights to gays and lesbians, and militia movements,” and quote Michael Barkun, an expert on radical-right groups, as saying, “This virulent racist and anti-Semitic theology… is prevalent among many right-wing extremist groups and has been called the ‘glue’ of the racist right.” [Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, 5/30/2006]Beginnings; 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' - In the 1920s, William J. Cameron, editor of the Dearborn Independent weekly newspaper, popularized the anti-Semitic hoax manuscript called “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which purported to detail the “secret teachings” of Judaism, including the planned takeover of the world’s governments, the subjugation of non-Semitic races, and the bizarre, cannibalistic rituals supposedly practiced by Jews. [Anti-Defamation League, 2005]Wesley Swift and 'Mud People' - In the 1940s, a former Methodist minister, Wesley Swift, started his own church, later known as the Church of Jesus Christ Christian. Swift had deep ties to a number of radical right-wing groups including the Ku Klux Klan; Swift and his associates set the stage for the mutation of the Christian Identity into a loosely organized set of virulently anti-Semitic, racist belief systems that will come to be grouped together under the “Christian Identity” rubric. Swift himself taught that only the white race was created in the form of God, while Asian and African races were created from the “beasts of the fields,” and thusly are subhuman creations. In Swift’s version of Genesis, Eve, the wife of the first “true” man Adam, was seduced by The Serpent, who masqeueraded as a white man. Eve bore a son, Cain, who is the actual father of the Jewish people. This reinterpretation, sometimes called the “two-seed” or “seedliner” theory, supports the Christian Identity propensity to demonize Jews, whom Swift and others labeled the “spawn of Satan.” Today’s white Europeans and their American and Canadian descendants, Swift taught, are descended from the “true son” of Adam and Eve, Abel, and are the actual “chosen people” of God. Some Christian Identity adherents go even farther, claiming that subhuman “pre-Adamic” races existed and “spawned” the non-white races of the world, which they label “mud people.” [Nicole Nichols, 2003; Anti-Defamation League, 2005]Permeates Racist, Far-Right Groups - By the 1960s, a new group of Christian Identity leaders emerges to spread the Identity theology through the radical, racist right in America and Canada, popularizing the once-obscure ideology. Most prominent among them are three disciples of Swift: James K. Warner, William Potter Gale, and Richard Butler. Warner, who will move to Louisiana and play a leading role in the fight against civil rights, founds the Christian Defense League and the New Christian Crusade Church. Gale, an early leader of the Christian Defense League and its paramilitary arm, the California Rangers, goes on to found the Posse Comitatus (see 1969), the group that will help bring about the sovereign citizen movement. Gale will later found the Committee of the States and serve as the “chief of staff” of its “unorganized militia.” Butler moves Swift’s Church of Jesus Christ Christian to Idaho and recasts it as the neo-Nazi group Aryan Nations (see Early 1970s). Under the leadership of Butler, Gale, Warner, and others, Christian Identity soon permeates most of the major far-right movements, including the Klan and a racist “skinhead” organization known as the Hammerskins. It also penetrates many extreme anti-government activist groups. The Anti-Defamation League will write, “The resurgence of right-wing extremism in the 1990s following the Ruby Ridge (see August 31, 1992) and Waco standoffs (see April 19, 1993) further spread Identity beliefs.” [Anti-Defamation League, 2005] Nichols will write: “Christian Identity enclaves provide a trail of safe havens for movement activists, stretching from Hayden Lake in northern Idaho (the Aryan Nations stronghold) to Elohim City on the Oklahoma/Arkansas border (see 1973 and After). Many white supremacists on the run from federal authorities have found shelter and support from Christian Identity followers.” Some organizations such as the Montana Militia are headed by Identity adherents, but do not as a group promote the theology. [Nicole Nichols, 2003; Anti-Defamation League, 2005]Bringing Forth the Apocalypse - Many Christian Identity adherents believe that the Biblical Apocalypse—the end of the world as it is currently known and the final ascendancy of select Christians over all others—is coming soon. Unlike some Christians, Identity adherents do not generally believe in the “rapture,” or the ascendancy of “saved” Christians to Heaven before the Apocalypse ensues; instead, Identity followers believe Jesus Christ will return to Earth only after the time of the “Tribulation,” a great battle between good and evil, which will set the stage for the return of Christ and the final transformation of the world. Identity followers believe it is their duty to prepare for the Apocalypse, and some believe it is their duty to help bring it about. They tend to cast the Apocalypse in racial terms—whites vs. nonwhites. Identity adherents believe that worldly institutions will collapse during the “end times,” and therefore tend to distrust such institutions, making Identity theology appealing to anti-government ideologies of groups such as militia, “Patriot,” and sovereign citizens groups. [Anti-Defamation League, 2005]21st Century Identity - In the 21st century, Christian Identity groups are strongest in the Pacific Northwest of America and Canada, and the US Midwest, though Identity churches can be found throughout the US and in other parts of Canada. Identity churches also exist in, among other nations, Ireland, Great Britain, Australia, and South Africa (see June 25, 2003). The Anti-Defamation League will write: “Yet while spread far it is also spread thin. Estimates of the total number of believers in North America vary from a low of 25,000 to a high of 50,000; the true number is probably closer to the low end of the scale. Given this relatively small following, its extensive penetration of the far right is all the more remarkable.” [Anti-Defamation League, 2005]Identity Violence - Identity adherents commit a number of violent acts, often against government and/or financial institutions, in an outsized proportion to their small numbers. In 1983, Identity adherent Gordon Kahl kills two US Marshals who attempt to arrest him on a parole violation, and kills an Arkansas sheriff before finally being gunned down by authorities (see February 13, 1983 and After). The white supremacist terrorist group The Order (see Late September 1983) contains a number of Identity members, including David Tate, who kills a Missouri Highway Patrol officer while attempting to flee to an Identity survivalist compound (see April 15, 1985). During the 1980s, small Identity groups such as The New Order (or The Order II) and the Arizona Patriots commit bombings and armored car robberies. After the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), Identity minister Willie Ray Lampley attempts a number of bombings (see November 9, 1995). In 1996, the Montana Freeman, led by Identity members, “stands off” federal authorities for 81 days (see March 25, 1996). Between 1996 and 1998, Eric Robert Rudolph, who has connections to Identity ministers such as Nord Davis and Dan Gayman, bombs an Atlanta gay bar (see February 21, 1997), several abortion clinics (see October 14, 1998), and the Atlanta Summer Olympics (see July 27, 1996 and After). In 1999, Identity member and former Aryan Nations security guard Buford Furrow goes on a shooting spree at a Jewish community center in Los Angeles (see August 10, 1999). [Anti-Defamation League, 2005]

Farmer and mechanic Gordon Kahl, a World War II veteran who earned two Purple Hearts while flying bombing missions and a convert to the Christian Identity “religion” (see 1960s and After), now embraces the burgeoning anti-tax protest ideology (see 1951-1967). He writes a letter to the IRS telling it that he will never again “give aid and comfort to the enemies of Christ” by paying income taxes, which he calls tithing to “the synagogue of Satan.” Kahl is a virulent anti-Semite who believes that World War II was engineered by Jewish bankers who had “created” and backed Adolf Hitler in order to subjugate “the feisty German people.” Kahl denies that the Holocaust ever occurred, calling the concentration camps “mostly work camps” where less than 50,000 Jews died. Communism, he writes, is a “smoke screen” for “world Jewry,” which uses every means at its disposal—including the Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs—to deceive and undermine Christians. To his friends and family, Kahl is a loving father and husband and a scrupulously honest businessman, but as author Daniel Levitas will write in 2003: “These virtuous aspects of his character did not extend beyond his small Anglo-Saxon circle, however. Kahl’s world was divided strictly into opposites and he felt only murderous contempt for those who fell on the other side of the line—satanic Jews, nonwhites, and the Christian lackeys of the International Jewish Conspiracy.” Kahl is a firm believer in ZOG, the “Zionist Occupied Government” of the United States, and he believes that most law enforcement officials are either unwitting dupes of this “conspiracy” or knowing members. Kahl leaves California for the West Texas oilfields, and in 1973 joins the anti-tax, anti-government Posse Comitatus (see 1969). [Levitas, 2002, pp. 193] Kahl will be convicted of tax evasion (see 1975 - 1981) and, fleeing incarceration, will kill two police officers in a shootout and later die himself after killing a third (see February 13, 1983 and After and March 13 - June 3, 1983).

A number of small, loosely affiliated “ecoterrorist” groups begin to form, mostly in California and West Coast areas of the United States, though their operations are evident throughout the nation. Some of the more prominent groups include: the Animal Liberation Front (ALF—see 1976); Earth Liberation Front (ELF—see 1997); and Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC—see 1998). Generally, the groups’ ideology embraces the concept of using property damage to hinder or stop the exploitation of animals and the destruction of the environment. These organizations usually target the operations of companies in related industries, or sometimes terrorize executives and employees of these firms. The companies usually targeted include automobile dealerships, housing developments, forestry companies, corporate and university-based medical research laboratories, restaurants, and fur farms. As of 2005, no one will have been injured in these attacks, though the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) will predict that the steady escalation of violence from the groups may result in injury or even death. The groups will cause millions of dollars in damage to property and items, usually through arson, bombings, and vandalism. The “ecoterrorist” groups tend to be small, and made up of environmental and animal rights activists on the “fringes” of the mainstream movements who have become frustrated with the slow pace of change. Some members are also affiliated with one or another of the various “anarchist” groups. The ADL will contrast the typical “ecoterrorist” group with racist and white supremacist groups, noting that their organizational structure tends to be extremely egalitarian and sometimes almost nonexistent: “Unlike racial hate groups with established hierarchies and membership requirements, for example, an activist can become a member of the ecoterror movement simply by carrying out an illegal action on its behalf.” [Anti-Defamation League, 2005] The term “ecoterrorism” does not gain widespread usage until after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) will note that “members of Congress, conservative commentators, and the FBI [will join] in a chorus decrying the acts as ‘ecoterrorism.’” Charles Muscoplat, the dean of agriculture at the University of Minnesota—a targeted site—says: “These are clearly terroristic acts. Someone could get hurt or killed in a big fire like we had.” ALF spokesman David Barbarash (see 1998) says in response: “I mean, what was the Boston Tea Party if not a massive act of property destruction?… Property damage is a legitimate political tool called economic sabotage, and it’s meant to attack businesses and corporations who are profiting from the exploitation, murder, and torture of either humans or animals, or the planet.… [T]o call those acts terrorism is ludicrous.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/2002]

A Posse Comitatus group (see 1969) in Michigan sends threatening notices to local law enforcement agencies about the agencies’ enforcement of state tax laws against tax protester George Kindred. [Anti-Defamation League, 2011]

A Navy photo of Mark Essex. [Source: US Navy / Crime Magazine]Mark James “Jimmy” Robert Essex, a 23-year-old African-American who served as a dental technician in the US Navy (and was stationed in California while many of his fellow soldiers were serving in Vietnam), launches a killing spree in New Orleans that results in nine dead and 13 wounded. History of Racial Complaints, Membership of Extremist Group - Essex is apparently driven by racism and anger over what he considers to be personal and historical slights; while stationed in San Diego, he filed numerous complaints about being treated unfairly due to his race, and was disciplined several times for engaging in fights with white sailors. While in the Navy, Essex became interested in the Black Panthers, and befriended a fellow recruit, a Black Muslim who had a record of violent crime before entering the service. A friend of Essex’s in the Navy later recalls Essex changing drastically, “in a matter of weeks,” after meeting his new friend. Essex was court-martialed for going AWOL (absent without leave), and told the court during the proceedings, “I had begun to hate all white people.” He was discharged with a diagnosis of “character and behavior disorders,” and went to New York City for a time, where he immersed himself in a chapter of the Black Panthers and the members’ revolutionary, violent rhetoric. He rejoined his Navy friend in New Orleans in August 1972, where he has lived until now. Spree Begins - In preparation for the spree, Essex carries a .38 revolver with the serial number removed, a Ruger .44 Magnum carbine rifle, a gas mask, firecrackers, lighter fluid, and ammunition. Essex begins his spree by hiding in a parking lot close to the New Orleans Police Department, and with the Ruger shoots two police officers, Cadet Alfred Harrell and Lieutenant Horace Perez. Harrell, an African-American, dies, while Perez survives his wounds. Essex misses his intended target, Cadet Bruce Weatherford. Harrell is the only African-American Essex shoots. It is impossible to know if Essex deliberately fires on a fellow African-American or simply does not recognize Harrell’s race. As the police respond to the shooting, Essex sets off diversionary firecrackers, jumps a chain-link fence, and flees, accidentally dropping the revolver, the gas mask, and some ammunition. He then breaks into a warehouse, setting off a silent alarm. Essex waits quietly for the police to respond to the break-in. Two officers respond. One, Edwin Hosli, receives a Ruger bullet in the back as he steps out of his car. His partner returns fire and calls for backup. The police swarm over the warehouse, but Essex has already fled. Hosli will die of his wounds two months later. Evidence shows that Essex may have been wounded by gunfire, or had cut himself on broken glass. The police discover clothing, a filter canister for a gas mask, 50 .38-caliber shells, and three unfired .44 magnum cartridges. The hunt for Essex leads into a poor, predominantly African-American area of the city known as Gert Town. Some of the officers theorize that the shooter deliberately dropped the three .44 cartridges to lead them into Gert Town, a theory bolstered by their subsequent discovery of a “trail” of cartridges. They follow the trail to the deserted Saint Mark Baptist Church. Detective Emmett Dupas later tells a writer: “It was clear that it was a trap, that we were being set up. The bullets were always in pairs and always pointed in the same direction.” [Crime Magazine, 7/11/2011; New Orleans Times-Picayune, 12/16/2011; TruTV, 2012]Dodging the Police - While planning how best to enter the church without exposing themselves to the shooter’s fire, the officers learn that Chief of Police Clarence Giarrusso has called off the search. Throughout the night and the early morning, Giarrusso’s office has received numerous complaints from residents about the heavy police presence in Gert Town, and the sometimes-harsh search methods being used, with officers kicking in doors and searching homes without warrants. That evening the church pastor spots Essex inside the church and runs to a neighbor’s house to call the police. By the time police arrive, Essex is gone. On January 2, about 6 p.m., Essex enters a grocery store near the church, wearing a bloodied bandage on his left hand. He buys lipstick and makeup and departs; the store owner, suspicious because of the number of news reports about the escaped shooter, alerts the police. The police are unable to find Essex. During the evening of January 3, the police respond to a tip that the shooter is hiding inside another church in Gert Town. The police fail to find Essex, but they do find a bag of .38-caliber cartridges and a note, later proven to have been written by Essex, apologizing to the pastor for breaking into the church. On the morning of January 7, Essex returns to the store, shoots the owner, and flees in a stolen car. Howard Johnson's - Essex hides in a parking garage adjacent to a Howard Johnson’s Hotel near City Hall and other government buildings, and gains access to the hotel’s 18th floor through a door that has been propped open. He frightens three black housekeepers, but tells them not to worry, that he is only hunting whites. He runs across Dr. Robert Steagall and Steagall’s wife Betty; Steagall attempts to stop Essex, but after a brief struggle for the weapon, Essex shoots Dr. Steagall in the chest and then Mrs. Steagall in the back of the head, killing them both. He uses his lighter fluid to set the Steagalls’ room on fire, and drops a black, green, and red African flag on the floor beside the two. He then breaks into the 11th floor via the stairwell, and sets fires in empty rooms all along the corridor. Essex kills assistant manager Frank Schneider on the 11th floor. As smoke billows out of the hotel window and the switchboard lights up with calls about an armed man in the hallway, Essex goes to the 10th floor, where he shoots and kills hotel general manager Walter Collins. As police and firemen respond to the reports, Essex, now on the 8th floor, shoots hotel guest Robert Beamish while Beamish is standing next to the pool far below. Beamish survives the gunshot. Essex, setting more fires on the 8th floor, spots fireman Tim Ursin climbing a ladder to the 11th floor, and shoots him in the forearm. Policeman Bill Trapagnier, climbing behind Ursin, returns fire. New Orleans police surround the hotel, many of them carrying personal weaponry. (TruTV writer Chuck Hustmyre will later explain that the New Orleans Police Department, like most urban police departments, has not yet implemented what will come to be known as SWAT teams, so the police lack high-powered weaponry and body armor.) Essex fires at the officers from his perch on the 8th floor, earning cheers from some of the onlookers when he shoots. Essex wounds Officer Ken Solis in the shoulder and Sergeant Emanuel Palmisano in the arm and back while Palmisano tries to help Solis. He kills Officer Philip Coleman with another head shot while Coleman is also attempting to help Palmisano and Solis. And, after climbing to the 16th floor, he shoots Officer Paul Persigo in the head, killing him instantly. He also wounds an ambulance driver and a fire chief. Command Post - Giarrusso, now on site, sets up his command post in the Howard Johnson’s lobby, forcing his officers to run a “gauntlet” of police and sniper gunfire to enter and exit the post. Deputy Police Chief Louis Sirgo assembles a team of five volunteers to rescue two officers trapped in an elevator near the top of the hotel. Essex is waiting on the 16th floor for them. When they arrive, Essex kills Sirgo with a shot to the spine and flees to the hallway. He mounts the roof. Police in the command post are beside themselves, and many think they are facing a team of assailants, not a single lone gunman. Erroneous reports flood the police airwaves, some claiming that as many as three shooters are in the hotel and that they have hostages. Giarrusso orders another group of officers up the stairwells, to locate and isolate the shooter(s) and, if possible, to force him or them onto the roof. One group of officers reaches the rooftop, and smashes its way through the locked door. Essex is waiting. He shoots Officer Larry Arthur in the stomach; Arthur manages to return fire before collapsing, though his shotgun blast misses Essex. More officers rush the roof. Giarrusso wants to secure the roof before nightfall if possible, but twilight is already coming. Helicopter - Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Chuck Pitman volunteers to fly a Coast Guard helicopter into the area. Pitman, a Vietnam veteran recuperating from a leg wound suffered in combat, takes two Marine sergeants armed with M-14 rifles with him for protection. By the time they are airborne, it is entirely dark and the hotel shrouded in fog. Giarrusso sends a group of armed volunteers with Pitman into the helicopter. By this time, Essex is somewhat pinned down by Officer Antoine Saacks, an ex-Marine who has brought an M-16 with a thousand rounds of ammunition and has trapped Essex behind the protection of a cinderblock cubicle wall. Saacks asks permission to go up with Pitman and drop onto the roof, but Giarrusso refuses to allow him to drop out of the copter. Instead, Pitman and the heavily-armed police officers, including Saacks, ascend beside the roof. Pitman uses a spotlight to search the roof, while Saacks and the other sharpshooters rake the roof with gunfire. They lay down so much fire that Saacks actually expends all one thousand rounds of ammunition, and they are forced to return for more ammunition before going up a second time and them a third time. Meanwhile, Essex is returning fire, accurately; the helicopter takes several hits. Finally Saacks determines that the sniper is using a metal water pipe to move back and forth from the protection of the cinderblock alcove to another spot on the roof where he can shoot. Saacks and the other police officers pour fire into the water pipe, causing it to split open. Killed by a Hail of Gunfire - The gunfire flushes Essex onto the roof, where the searchlight spots him as he snaps off return fire at the helicopter. “I saw him come out of the dark,” Pitman later recalls. Essex fires a bullet directly at Pitman, but strikes the transmission housing instead. The helicopter hovers 10 feet off the roof and less than 50 feet from Essex as Saacks reloads for the final exchange. “I just walked the bullets right into him,” Saacks later recalls. Saacks’s gunfire is joined by fire from other officers, including a group that has reached the roof. Essex is killed by the onslaught of gunfire; over 200 bullet wounds are later counted. One sniper later recalls that the medical team had to use “a scooper” to remove Essex’s remains. 'Shrine' of Racial Hatred - Police continue to hunt into the next day for Essex’s presumed cohorts, but find nothing. Police eventually identify Essex, and break into his apartment, to find what Hustmyre later terms “a shrine dedicated to his hatred.” Racist graffiti covers his wall space, with the words “hate” and “kill” repeated over and over again. Police find Muslim and Black Panthers newsletters, a copy of the book Black Rage, and a map with the locations of the police department and the Howard Johnson’s Hotel circled. Trapagnier will be one of a number of officers still unsure that Essex operated on his own. He later tells a Times-Picayune reporter, “My gut feeling is, I shot at two different people.” Warning Letter - The New Orleans television station WWL turns over a handwritten note Essex had sent it sometime in late December. Station personnel had not opened the letter until January 6, the day before Essex’s spree, and had not realized the note was connected with the shootings until afterwards. The police crime lab later proves the note was written by Essex. It reads in its entirety: “Africa greets you. On Dec. 31, 1972, aprx. 11 p.m., the downtown New Orleans Police Department will be attacked. Reason—many, but the death of two innocent brothers will be avenged. And many others. P.S. Tell pig Giarrusso the felony action squad ain’t sh_t.” He signed the note “Mata’.” The 900-page police report later concludes with the following statement concerning Essex’s motive: “What he intended to achieve will probably remain in the grave with him.” The New York office of the Black Panther Party will send a note of condolence to Essex’s parents, calling Essex a “warrior and revolutionary.” The New Orleans Times-Picayune will state that Essex harbored “an insane hatred of the police.” [New Orleans Times-Picayune, 12/16/2011; TruTV, 2012]

Andreas Strassmeir, a frequent Elohim City resident and arms expert. [Source: Eye on Hate (.com)]Robert Millar, a former Mennonite who left Canada for the US in the early 1950s, moves to the Ozark Mountain region of eastern Oklahoma and founds what he calls “Elohim City,” a small compound populated by his four sons and 12 other followers. Elohim City grows to become a 400-acre compound populated with 70 to 100 “Christian Identity” white supremacists and religious extremists, who believe that whites are the only true people and all others are subhuman “mud people” (see 1960s and After). Elohim is a Hebrew word for God. Elohim City, accessible only via a rocky road and a single steel bridge, soon becomes a haven for violent right-wing extremists, including Timothy McVeigh, who will call the compound two weeks before bombing a federal building in Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), and Andreas “Andy the German” Strassmeir, a German weapons buff with ties to neo-Nazi groups and an alleged co-conspirator of McVeigh’s (see August 1994 - March 1995). The residents receive intensive paramilitary training, often led by Strassmeir, and the compound contains a large arsenal of weapons. Elohim City becomes the headquarters of the Aryan Republican Army (see 1992 - 1995), an organization that has Strassmeir as its “chief of security.” Some of the Elohim City residents such as ARA member Dennis Mahon come to believe that Strassmeir is a government informant. Author Nicole Nichols, an expert on right-wing hate groups, will later say she believes Strassmeir is the infamous “John Doe #2” of the Oklahoma City bombing (see April 20, 1995). [Associated Press, 2/23/1997; Time, 2/24/1997; Nicole Nichols, 2003; Nicole Nichols, 2003; Nicole Nichols, 2003] A 2002 report by the Anti-Defamation League says that after the Oklahoma City bombing, Elohim City changes to become a less militant settlement, populated largely by white separatists and religious fundamentalists seeking to withdraw from the world. Before his death in 2001, Millar says: “Somebody said, ‘You’re not a racist, you’re a purist.’ I sort of liked that.” John Millar, who becomes the community leader after his father’s death, says: “[W]e consider ourselves survivalists in the sense that we want to survive the best way we can.… We have weapons, but any person within 15 miles of us has more weapons per household than we do. We don’t make a big thing about weapons. We don’t think we can keep the National Guard away with a few weapons.” An unnamed government informer tells a New York Post reporter in June 2001: “McVeigh is a hero inside Elohim City. They look upon him ‘as a martyr to their cause.’” [Anti-Defamation League, 8/9/2002]

In 1973 Afghan Prince Muhammad Daoud ousts the Afghan king with help from the Soviet Union, and establishes an Afghan republic. The CIA in turn begins funding Islamist extremists, including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, as a resistance movement opposing the Soviets. US allies Iran, with its intelligence agency SAVAK, and Pakistan, with its intelligence agency the ISI, play an important role in funneling weapons and other forms of assistance to the Afghan Islamist militants. After the pro-Soviet coup in April 1978, the Islamic militants with the support of the ISI carry out a massive campaign of terrorism, assassinating hundreds of teachers and civil servants. [Dreyfuss, 2005, pp. 260 - 263]

Two British animal rights activists, Ronnie Lee and Cliff Goodman of the “Band of Mercy,” are jailed for firebombing a British vivisection research center. Following the attack, Lee issues a statement saying that the firebombing was intended to “prevent the torture and murder of our animal brothers and sisters.” [Animal Liberation Front, 2002 ; Anti-Defamation League, 2005] After being released from jail, Lee and other Band of Mercy members will form the Animal Liberation Front (see 1976).

Wisconsin Posse Comitatus (see 1969) activist Thomas Stockheimer, who founded the Wisconsin chapter in 1970 from his own organization, the “Little People’s Tax Advisory Committee,” and several of his followers lure IRS agent Fred Chicken to a farm in Abbotsford, Wisconsin, and assault him. Stockheimer is later convicted of felony assault against Chicken, and after losing an appeal, becomes a fugitive. During his appeals process, Stockheimer introduces future Posse Comitatus leader James Wickstrom to the Posse Comitatus (see February 14-21, 1983 and 1984). Stockheimer’s anti-Semitism, racism, and anti-tax philophophy are what attracts Wickstrom to the group. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2004; Anti-Defamation League, 2011]

TWA logo. [Source: Surfside Hawaii (.com)]TWA Flight 841, en route to New York City from Tel Aviv, explodes in mid-air. The Boeing 747 stopped in Athens for a routine layover, took off, and shortly thereafter reported an engine on fire. Soon after the report, the plane explodes and crashes into the Ionian Sea. Seventy-nine passengers and nine crew members die. A TWA spokesman in New York says that sabotage is “highly unlikely,” but a youth organization in Beirut with connections to Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal claims that one of its members surreptitiously placed a bomb on board. In general, aviation officials scoff at the idea that a terrorist would have bombed a plane. However, in May 1995, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will find that the plane was destroyed by a bomb. The NTSB’s final report will say that the “probable cause of this accident was the detonation of an explosive device within the aft cargo compartment of the aircraft which rendered the aircraft uncontrollable.” [Board, 5/26/1975 ; Werth, 2006, pp. 324-325]

Anti-tax protester and Posse Comitatus member Gordon Kahl (see 1967 - 1973), after two years spent preaching the virtues of Christian Identity and anti-tax ideology to his fellow West Texas oilfield workers, joins five fellow protesters in giving a television interview in Midland, Texas. They declare their opposition to income taxation and encourage viewers to do the same. The television interview brings Kahl to the attention of the IRS, and in December he is arrested for failing to file income tax returns for 1973 and 1974. Asked by the judge if he understands the nature of the proceedings being brought against him, Kahl replies, “I understand God’s law but I’m not too good on Satan’s law,” echoing his belief that the federal income tax laws were written by what he calls “satanic Jews.” He tells the judge that he had not forgotten to file his taxes, he refused to file them out of religious conviction. The judge and jury refuse to countenance his Posse arguments, and he is convicted, sentenced to a year in prison, five years’ probation, and a psychiatric evaluation. He is also ordered to pay his back taxes. Kahl is released after several months, but loses his appeal and spends eight more months in prison before being released in August 1979. Instead of obeying court orders to file his returns and pay his back taxes, Kahl defies his court orders and begins mounting up a steady debt to the IRS. In November 1980, the government puts a lien on his property, and seizes it for non-payment in 1981. A warrant for Kahl’s arrest is issued in North Dakota, his last known place of residence. [Levitas, 2002, pp. 193-194] Kahl flees the warrant and will later kill two police officers outside Medina, North Dakota, when they try to apprehend him (see February 13, 1983 and After).

James Wickstrom. [Source: Southern Poverty Law Center]James Wickstrom, a tool salesman and former mill worker angered by what he saw as less-qualified African-American workers bypassing him in receiving raises and promotions, meets Thomas Stockheimer (see 1974), a member of the violent anti-tax, racist, and anti-Semitic organization Posse Comitatus (see 1969). Wickstrom walks by Stockheimer’s “Little People’s Tax Party” office in Racine, Wisconsin, each week, and is accosted by Stockheimer, who asks him: “Do you know who you are? Do you really know who you are? Do you know that you’re an Israelite?” Initially Wickstrom is offended at being called, he believes, a Jew, but after a discussion, leaves with two audiotapes of sermons by Posse founder William Potter Gale that tell him he is a member of God’s chosen people, a member of the “true” Israelite tribe; Jews are the offspring of Satan and are unworthy of being called Israelites. Blacks, Gale preaches, are subhuman, no better than beasts of the field, and merely tools of the Jewish conspiracy to destroy white Western society. Wickstrom finds Gale’s message appealing, and he joins Stockheimer in setting up a Bible study group. Wickstrom follows in Gale’s footsteps and becomes an adherent of the Christian Identity ideology (see 1960s and After). Stockheimer flees Racine ahead of the police, who intend to have him complete his jail sentence for assaulting an IRS agent, and Wickstrom quits his job and moves to Schell City, Missouri; he will later explain the move, saying, “I wanted to be with like-minded people.” He buys property near Identity minister Dan Gayman, becomes a teacher at a small private school operated by Gayman and another Identity minister, Loren Kallstrom, and in 1977 founds his own church, Mission of Jesus the Christ Church, living off tithes and donations. After a falling out with Gayman, in 1978 Wickstrom moves back to Wisconsin, at the invitation of Posse member Donald Minniecheske, who wants him to take part in the establishment of a Posse compound on the shores of the Embarrass River (see 1978 - 1983). [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2004]

A bomb is detonated in the lavatory of Cubana de Aviacion Flight 455. The plane, on its way from Bridgetown, Barbados, to Havana, Cuba, plunges into the sea killing all 73 people aboard. A Cuban exile by the name of Orlando Bosch is accused of masterminding the bombing and spends 11 years in a Venezuelan prison. During Bosch’s time in prison, Otto Reich discusses the possibility of a visa for Bosch with the US State Department. After Bosch is acquitted, he heads to Miami, entering on February 16, 1988 without a visa. [Salon, 1/11/2002]

The CIA begins covert action against the Communist government in Afghanistan, which is closely tied to the Soviet Union. Some time this year, the CIA begins training militants in Pakistan and beaming radio propaganda into Afghanistan. By April 1979, US officials are meeting with opponents of the Afghan government to determine their needs. [Blum, 1995, pp. 344] Robert Gates, who will become CIA Director in the early 1990s, will later recall that in a meeting on March 30, 1979, Under Secretary of Defense Walter Slocumbe wonders aloud whether there is “value in keeping the Afghan insurgency going, ‘sucking the Soviets into a Vietnamese quagmire.’” [Gates, 1996, pp. 145] In March 1979, there is a major revolt in Herat province, and in June and August there are large scale army mutinies. [Cooley, 2002, pp. 5] President Carter will formally approve covert aid to opponents of the government in July (see July 3, 1979), which will result in a Russian invasion in December (see December 8, 1979).

James Wickstrom (see 1975 - 1978), a self-styled “minister” of the racist, anti-Semitic Christian Identity ideology (see 1960s and After) and a member of the anti-government Posse Comitatus (see 1969), moves back to his childhood state of Wisconsin from his home in Missouri, at the invitation of Donald Minniecheske, who owns 570 acres of land on the shores of the Embarrass River and wants to create a “township” for the Posse that would be run without recognition of federal, state, or local law. Minniecheske wants Wickstrom to be part of the new “township” and what Minniecheske calls the “rejuvenation” of the Posse. He begins by naming himself “national director of counter insurgency” of the organization. After building a bar and moving a few trailers onto the land, Wickstrom and Minniecheske name the property the Constitutional Township of Tigerton Dells. Wickstrom names himself the township’s judge and municipal clerk, and grants Minniecheske a new liquor license (he had lost his previous license two years before). Wickstrom also begins traveling through the Midwestern farm belt, appearing at meeting halls, in basements, and at farm shows. “I knew that something had to be done. I knew that the ranchers and the farmers were being meticulously destroyed by the Jew banking system in America,” Wickstrom will later say. Wickstrom preaches the gospel of anti-tax protest and refusal to pay income taxes (see 1951-1967). He tells his listeners that since taxation and the federal government are both illegitimate, and since they are “sovereign citizens” of the US, they can pay their tax debts with fictitious money orders. Driver’s licenses and ZIP codes are equally illegitimate, Wickstrom says, and tells his listeners they are the victims of a widespread Jewish conspiracy that works through tax collectors, law enforcement officials, judges, and the like to oppress them. Jews and tax collectors should be lynched, Wickstrom advises. Dairy farmer Floyd Cochran will later recall listening to Wickstrom, saying: “In the ‘70s and ‘80s farming went through a drastic change. A lot of people I’d known a good part of my life went out of business. Wickstrom was organizing farmers out West, appearing at farm shows and things of that nature, telling farmers you are losing your place not because of something you did but because the Jews want to take away your farms.” By 1980, Tigerton Dells becomes the center of Posse-led paramilitary training; Wickstrom will later claim that Posse seminars draw thousands of participants who are taught survival skills and covert military operations by high-ranking Vietnam veterans. That same year, Wickstrom runs for the US Senate on the far-right Constitution Party ticket. In 1982, a local radio station begins broadcasting his speeches, and he runs for governor of Wisconsin. He continues preaching, and tells his listeners, falsely, that “his” Posse has over two million members. When North Dakota Posse member Gordon Kahl kills two US Marshals and flees (see February 13, 1983 and After), Wickstrom uses the incident to vault to national prominence and establish himself as a Posse leader (see February 14-21, 1983), moderating his usual virulently racist rhetoric, emphasizing his patriotism and strong Christian beliefs, and presenting himself as a champion of ordinary farmers and working people. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2004]

A photograph of Theodore ‘Ted’ Kaczynski, taken in 1968 while Kaczynski was a young faculty member at the University of California at Berkeley. [Source: George M. Bergman / Wikimedia]An unmailed package is found in a car park at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and brought to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, because of its return address; the addressee now teaches at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. Buckley Crist, the material sciences professor named in the return address on the package cannot identify it, and turns it over to campus security. When Northwestern police officer Terry Marker opens it, it explodes, injuring him slightly. The package contains a pipe bomb packed in a carved wooden box. [BBC, 11/12/1987; Washington Post, 4/14/1996; Washington Post, 1998] The bomb is made of a nine-inch pipe filled with explosive powders and triggered by a nail held by rubber bands that strikes and ignites match heads when the box is opened. [World of Forensic Science, 1/1/2005] The package contains 10 $1 commemorative Eugene O’Neill stamps on its outer wrapper. Authorities will later speculate that the bomber may have chosen the O’Neill stamps because the playwright was an ardent supporter of anarchists. [Knight Ridder, 5/28/1995] The bombing will later be shown to be the work of Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, the so-called “Unabomber” (see April 3, 1996). It is believed to be Kaczynski’s first bomb. [New York Times, 4/7/1996]

According to a 1992 Congressional investigation led by Congressman Charles Schumer (D-NY), between 1979 and 1991, federal law enforcement agencies receive more than 700 tips about BCCI’s criminal activities. The criminal BCCI bank will finally be shut down in 1991 (see July 5, 1991). The tips include BCCI involvement in: Promoting political unrest in Pakistan. Smuggling arms to various countries, including Syria, Libya, and Iran. Financing terrorist groups. Links to organized crime in the US and Italy. Time magazine reporters Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynne will later comment in a book: “Too many people knew too much about BCCI, and they knew it long before the bank spun itself into bankruptcy and scandal.… That [CIA Deputy Director] Robert Gates could jokingly refer to it in a conversation with Customs chief William von Raab as the “bank of crooks and criminals” three years before the scandal broke merely reflects the run of knowledge around Washington. Indeed, it would probably have been difficult to find very many people with real power who did not know about the bank, based on the wide distribution of CIA reports.” Schumer will later conclude: “At the very least, there was nobody putting together all the pieces.… You could make a credible case that somebody told them not to do anything about BCCI.” [Beaty and Gwynne, 1993, pp. 346]

A young Fauzi Hasbi. [Source: SBS Dateline]Fauzi Hasbi, the son of a separatist leader in the Indonesian province of Aceh, is captured by an Indonesian military special forces unit in 1979 and soon becomes a mole for the Indonesian government. Hasbi becomes a leader in the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), and he also plays a long-time role in Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaeda affiliate. For many years, he literally lives next door to Jemaah Islamiyah leaders Abu Bakar Bashir and Hambali (see April 1991-Late 2000). In 2005, the Australian television program SBS Dateline will present documents that it claims “prove beyond doubt that Fauzi Hasbi had a long association with the [Indonesian] military.” For instance, military documents dating from 1990 and 1995 give him specific spying tasks. [SBS Dateline, 10/12/2005] In February 2001, the Indonesian magazine Tempo documents some of Hasbi’s links to the Indonesian military, after he has been linked to a major role the Christmas bombings in Indonesia two months earlier (see December 24-30, 2000 and February 20, 2001). He admits to having some ties to certain high-ranking military figures and says he has had a falling out with GAM, but denies being a traitor to any militant group. [Tempo, 2/20/2001; Tempo, 2/27/2001] Yet even after this partial exposure, he continues to pose as an Islamist militant for the military. A 2002 document shows that he is even assigned the job of special agent for BIN, Indonesia’s intelligence agency. [SBS Dateline, 10/12/2005] A December 2002 report by a US think tank, the International Crisis Group, details his role as a government mole. He and two of his associates are abducted and killed in mysterious circumstances in the Indonesian city of Ambon on February 22, 2003. Seven suspects, including an Indonesian policeman, later admit to the killings but their motive for doing so remains murky. [Agence France-Presse, 5/22/2003]

A graduate student at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, John Harris, is injured when he opens a box left at the University’s Technological Institute. The box contains a bomb that explodes when opened. Harris suffers minor cuts and burns. [BBC, 11/12/1987; Washington Post, 1998] Authorities recognize fundamental similarities between this and a previous Northwestern University bombing (see May 25-26, 1978). This bomb is quite similar in construction to that one, though more sophisticated in construction and design. It consists of a cigar box and a pipe bomb, triggered by a battery-operated filament that ignites explosive powders. [World of Forensic Science, 1/1/2005] However, the package contains a number of small, finger-sized pieces of wood glued to its outer container. [Knight Ridder, 5/28/1995] The bombing will later be shown to be the work of Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, the so-called “Unabomber” (see May 25-26, 1978 and April 3, 1996).

President Carter authorizes covert aid for opponents of the Communist government in Afghanistan. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s National Security Adviser, will state in 1998, “According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the mujaheddin began… after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan… But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.… We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.” [Le Nouvel Observateur (Paris), 1/15/1998] After Brzezinski’s confession, other US officials who denied US involvement prior to the Soviet invasion will change their story as well. For instance, Charles Cogan, who is head of the CIA covert aid program to Afghanistan at this time, will call Carter’s approval on this day a “very modest beginning to US involvement.” [Cooley, 2002, pp. 10] In fact, even this is not correct because the CIA had been aiding the rebels since at least the year before (see 1978 and 1973-1979). The Soviets invade Afghanistan by the end of 1979 (see December 8, 1979).

According to a story in the New York Times, the Carter administration is considering its options for dealing with Pakistan’s secret nuclear weapons program. One possibility is a covert operation aimed at destroying the Pakistani nuclear research facility in Kahuta, where uranium is being enriched to make a nuclear bomb. However, no such strike will be carried out and US policy will become more favorable to Pakistan after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the end of the year. [New York Times, 8/12/1979; Armstrong and Trento, 2007, pp. 98]

A parcel mailed from Chicago catches fire in a mailbag aboard American Airlines Flight 444 from Chicago to Washington, DC. The package contains a bomb which was apparently constructed to explode inside the cargo hold. Twelve passengers are treated for smoke inhalation; the flight conducts an emergency landing at Dulles Airport near Washington. [BBC, 11/12/1987; Washington Post, 1998] The bomb does not ignite because instead of explosive powder, it contains barium nitrate, a powder often used to create green smoke in fireworks. [World of Forensic Science, 1/1/2005] The bombing is later shown to be the work of Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, the so-called “Unabomber” (see April 3, 1996). After the airline bombing and the subsequent bombing of a United Airlines executive (see June 10, 1980), the FBI ties the previous bombings (see May 25-26, 1978 and May 9, 1979) to this one and code-names the file UNABOM, for “UNiversity and Airline BOMber.” The media will soon dub the unknown assailant the “Unabomber.” [Washington Post, 4/4/1996; World of Forensic Science, 1/1/2005] Kaczynski will later express regret for trying to bomb the plane (see April 24, 1995).

Juhayman al-Otaibi. [Source: Public domain]One or two of the bin Laden brothers are arrested over the attempted takeover of the Grand Mosque in Medina. One of the brothers is Mahrous, the other is, according to author Steve Coll, “probably Osama.” Inside Job? - The mosque had been seized by about five hundred rebels opposed to the Saudi royal family, led by a militant named Juhayman al-Otaibi. The rebels had apparently used Bin Laden company vehicles to stock ammunition and food in the mosque prior to its seizure, indicating some people at the company were sympathetic to them. According to one account, the two brothers are not held for long; a bin Laden company employee will say the arrest is a mistake as the arresting policemen wrongly think the two brothers are conspirators just because they are monitoring police radio traffic. [Coll, 2008, pp. 225-228]Mahrous bin Laden - Other accounts say that Mahrous, who joined a rebel group opposed to the Saudi government in the 1960s, is held for longer and only eventually released from prison because of the close ties between the bin Ladens and the Saudi royal family. Mahrous will abandon the rebel cause and join the family business, eventually being made a head of the Medina branch and a member of the board. He will still hold these positions on 9/11, although a newspaper will report that “his past [is] not forgiven and most important decisions in the [bin Laden family business] are made without Mahrous’ input.” [Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 10/7/2001; New Yorker, 11/5/2001; Ha'aretz, 12/18/2002]Later Comment by Osama - Osama’s position on the seizure of the mosque at this time is not known, although he will later criticize the Saudi king for not negotiating a surrender. Coll will suggest that, although he is one of the most devout members of the bin Laden family at this time, he is not in league with the rebels as he is more concerned with his own material wellbeing. [Coll, 2008, pp. 229]Older Bin Ladens Assist Besiegers - In contrast to Osama, several other family members, including Salem, Mustafa, Yahya, and Yeslam, work extremely hard to take back the mosque. As the bin Ladens actually renovated the mosque, they are able to provide the Saudi government with detailed plans to help their assault. After the rebels retreat underground, the family brings in equipment to drill holes in the floor, so that government troops can drop grenades down on holdouts. [Coll, 2008, pp. 225-226]

Bin Laden, dressed in combat fatigues, in Afghanistan during the 1980’s. (Note the image has been digitally altered to brighten the shadow on his face.) [Source: CNN]Osama bin Laden begins providing financial, organizational, and engineering aid for the mujaheddin in Afghanistan, with the advice and support of the Saudi royal family. [New Yorker, 11/5/2001] Some, including Richard Clarke, counterterrorism “tsar” during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, believe he was handpicked for the job by Prince Turki al-Faisal, head of Saudi intelligence (see Early 1980 and After). [New Yorker, 11/5/2001; Sunday Times (London), 8/25/2002] The Pakistani ISI want a Saudi prince as a public demonstration of the commitment of the Saudi royal family and as a way to ensure royal funds for the anti-Soviet forces. The agency fails to get royalty, but bin Laden, with his family’s influential ties, is good enough for the ISI. [Miami Herald, 9/24/2001] (Clarke will argue later that the Saudis and other Muslim governments used the Afghan war in an attempt to get rid of their own misfits and troublemakers.) This multinational force later coalesces into al-Qaeda. [Clarke, 2004, pp. 52]

Nabih Berri in 1982. [Source: Reza / Corbis]Nabih Berri takes over the Amal Militia, a Shi’a Lebanese paramilitary organization, and tries to build it up as a power base for himself. Although not a fundamentalist Muslim, Berri allies himself with the new regime in Iran and Hezbollah, a fundamentalist Lebanese Shi’a party backed by Iran. Berri also manages to convince Syrian authorities that he will represent their interests in Lebanon and comes to a similar arrangement with the Ba’ath party in Iraq. This is a difficult balance for Berri to keep, as journalists Joe and Susan Trento will later point out, “If he displeased the Iranian mullahs who controlled the supply of money to Hezbollah in Lebanon, he would lose his grip on power.” Former intelligence officer Michael Pilgrim will comment, “Berri was targeted for CIA recruitment and so were members of his militia… I think it’s safe to say we financed his early trips to Iran.” He also commences relationships with the Drug Enforcement Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency. Unsurprisingly, some of the consequences of this are bad for the US, and the Trentos will comment: “The relationship would end in a series of deadly disasters for members of our armed services and the CIA. According to US intelligence officials who served in Lebanon at the time, Berri kept the peace with [Iran] and the Shi’a by allowing them to attack Westerners in his Amal-controlled territory. To prove his loyalty to the Shi’a and keep the alliance that was essential to his power base, he failed to pass on intelligence to the United States.” Based on interviews with former intelligence officers and associates of Berri, the Trentos will conclude that he facilitated attacks on the US by Hezbollah by allowing their operatives to pass Amal checkpoints without warning the US, for example before attacks on the US embassy and Marine barracks in 1983 in which hundreds die (see April 18-October 23, 1983). [Trento and Trento, 2006, pp. 74-77]

In his Lake Forest, Illinois, home, United Airlines president Percy Wood opens a package that apparently contains a book. It contains both a book and a bomb in the book’s hollowed-out pages. It explodes, causing Wood to suffer cuts and bruises. The initials “FC” are found etched on, or punched into, a piece of pipe from the bomb. [BBC, 11/12/1987; Washington Post, 1998; World of Forensic Science, 1/1/2005] The bombing will later be shown to be the work of Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, the so-called “Unabomber” (see April 3, 1996). “FC” will later be found to stand for “Freedom Club.” [Washington Post, 1/23/1998; World of Forensic Science, 1/1/2005] Authorities will later speculate that Wood may have been targeted in part because of Kaczynski’s strange fascination with wood; he often uses wood in the construction of his bombs. The hollowed-out book, Ice Brothers, is published by Arbor House, whose symbol is a tree leaf. [Associated Press, 4/25/1995] The package contains a note asking Wood to read the enclosed book, and noting, “You will find it of great social significance.” The author of Ice Brothers, Sloan Wilson, also wrote The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, which, according to a 1959 biography of Wilson, “was the definitive epithet for the commuting suburbanite, the status-hungry conformist from Madison Avenue.” Like an earlier bomb (see May 25-26, 1978), this bomb’s package is mailed using postage stamps commemorating the playwright Eugene O’Neill; authorities will speculate that Kaczynski may have chosen the stamps because of O’Neill’s ardent support of anarchists. [Knight Ridder, 5/28/1995]

Salem bin Laden in 1975. [Source: Corbis]Salem bin Laden, Osama’s oldest brother, described by a French secret intelligence report as one of two closest friends of Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd who often performs important missions for Saudi Arabia, is involved in secret Paris meetings between US and Iranian emissaries this month, according to a French report. Frontline, which published the French report, notes that such meetings have never been confirmed. Rumors of these meetings have been called the “October Surprise” and some have speculated that in these meetings, George H. W. Bush negotiated a delay to the release of the US hostages in Iran, thus helping Ronald Reagan and Bush win the 1980 Presidential election. All of this is highly speculative, but if the French report is correct, it points to a long-standing connection of highly improper behavior between the Bush and bin Laden families. [PBS Frontline, 2001]

Donald Gregg. [Source: Spartacus Educational]Vice President George H. W. Bush asks CIA agent and National Security Council official Donald Gregg to serve as his national security and foreign policy adviser. Gregg agrees, and retires from the CIA. Gregg will work closely with Bush and former CIA agent Felix Rodriguez to help put together a covert operation to supply the Nicaraguan Contras with arms, cash, and supplies. [Spartacus Schoolnet, 12/28/2007]

Ronald and Nancy Reagan celebrate winning the presidency. [Source: Medal of Freedom (.com)]After winning a sweeping election victory against President Jimmy Carter in November 1980, Ronald Reagan is sworn in as US president. The same day that Reagan is sworn in, Iran releases the remaining 52 hostages it has held captive at the US Embassy in Tehran for 444 days (see November 4, 1979-January 20, 1981). [PBS, 2000]

Pakistan produces its first weapons-grade uranium. The sample is produced by a team led by scientist A. Q. Khan that is working on building a nuclear weapon. Authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark will later call this “a colossal breakthrough on the path to manufacturing a nuclear bomb.” Khan informs Pakistani dictator Muhammad Zia ul-Haq of the breakthrough. Zia then visits the facility where Khan works, renaming it after Khan in May. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 84] Khan had first enriched uranium three years previously, but that apparently had not been weapons grade (see Shortly Before or on April 4, 1978).

The Party of Labor of Albania’s newspaper, Zeri i Popullit, prints an article on April 8, condemning Yugoslavia’s police actions and the treatment of Yugoslav Albanians, and supporting the protest demands. It also says, “The London and Versailles Treaties, which settled the frontiers between Yugoslavia and Albania, can no longer be imposed to the detriment of the Albanian people.” PLA First Secretary Enver Hoxha may be the anonymous author of the article. A Zeri i Popullit article two weeks later says hundreds were killed, wounded, missing, or arrested, and that it is Albania’s right to condemn Yugoslavia’s repeated actions, which it has not done officially. Zeri i Popullit points to Yugoslavia’s charges about the treatment of Croats and Slovenes across its border in Carinthia, which the article compares to Albanian concerns about Kosovar Albanians. Albania denies seeking to annex Kosova. The Yugoslav government sees these articles as evidence that Albania is behind the demonstrations, after initially blaming domestic and Western sources. As a result, previously increasing economic and cultural cooperation between the two countries will be reduced. On April 29, Lazar Kolisevski, a member of the Yugoslav Presidency, presents a report to a meeting of the Presidency and the Federal Council for the Protection of the Constitutional Order, charging that the PLA caused the demonstrations, which were “hostile and counter-revolutionary,” and sought unification with Albania. Kolisevski calls nationalism the greatest threat to Yugoslavia and says “economic nationalism,” economic divisions between groups in Yugoslavia, is the main cause of friction, which a Zeri i Popullit article also pointed out. Allegedly PLA-Linked Kosovar Groups - Several allegedly PLA-linked organizations will be blamed for the protests: the Revolutionary Movement of Albanian Unification (whose leader, Adam Demaci, has been in jail since 1975), the Red Popular Front (considered closer to the PLA), eight “irredentist” groups arrested before the events, and the Albanian Communist Marxist-Leninist Party in Yugoslavia (represented at the 8th Congress of the PLA, in September 1981, and having almost the same program as the PLA). Besides these “extremists,” Kosovo President Xhavid Nimami blames “Ballists” led by Abaz Ermeni and “Zogists” led by Leka Zog, Zog I’s son, and equates calls for “united Albanians” to “United Serbs,” etc., saying they would destroy Yugoslavia. In 1997 an anonymous high-ranking official will allege that a meeting of officials and professors was held in Tirana to propose inciting Kosovars to seek more rights. Albanian anti-communist scholar Paulin Kola will suggest that this was done to distract Albanians from economic problems caused by the break in relations with China in the late ‘70s. Others will allege that Albania’s Sigurimi security agency organized the demonstrations, through ties with Albanians in Western Europe, especially Switzerland. Some Kosovars will say they received support from Albanians, but not from the Albanian government. Kola will point to the alleged role of the ex-communist Socialist Party of Albania in the formation of the KLA in the ‘90s as evidence that Albania was behind the 1981 events. In 1992-1993 and 2001 interviews, Xhafer Shatri will tell Kola that he thought the March 1981 demonstrations were unplanned. On the other hand, Albania benefits from trade with Yugoslavia and Yugoslavia acts as a buffer against the USSR. Albania will repatriate 249 Kosovar Albanian asylum seekers back to Yugoslavia from 1981 to 1983. Alleged Soviet Involvement - In late April, Yugoslavia’s Fadil Hoxha says “Greater Albanian nationalism” would destabilize the Balkans as much as other nationalisms, and implies that the USSR wants to destabilize the Balkans to undermine the Non-Aligned Movement. In June, Zeri i Popullit will accuse the USSR of trying to use Serbia’s crackdown to cause problems in the Balkans and NATO. [Vickers, 1998, pp. 202-207, 211-212; Kola, 2003, pp. 158-160, 163]

A maintenance worker at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City finds a bomb in a business classroom. The device is defused by the local bomb squad and no one is injured. [BBC, 11/12/1987; Washington Post, 1998] The bomb will later be shown to be the work of Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, the so-called “Unabomber” (see April 3, 1996).

Jusuf Gervalla, founder of the Movement for the National Liberation of Kosova (MNLK), his brother Bardhosh Gervalla, and Kadri Zeka, leader of the Group of Marxist-Leninists of Kosova (GMLK), are shot to death following a meeting near Stuttgart, which some say is about finalizing an alliance between the groups. The MNLK and GMLK are the primary pro-Hoxha communist dissident groups in Kosovo province, and were discovered and hunted for by the police following the unrest in 1981. Subsequently those behind the assassination will remain unidentified; Albania will blame the Yugoslavs and the Yugoslavs will say Albania did it, to gain control and ideological dominance in the Kosovar struggle. On the other hand, Albania at this time sees Yugoslavia as a buffer against the USSR and a valuable trade partner, following the break in relations with China. Albania returns Kosovars seeking asylum to Yugoslavia. The MNLK and GMLK are not destroyed by the killings and will subsequently be involved in the Movement for an Albanian Socialist Republic in Yugoslavia, whose leader will also fall to assassination. [Vickers, 1998, pp. 203-205; Kola, 2003, pp. 317-318]

A parcel addressed to the head of the Vanderbilt University computer science department, Patrick Fischer, explodes, injuring Fischer’s secretary, Janet Smith. The package was originally sent to Fischer at Pennsylvania State University but was later forwarded to Nashville, Tennessee, where Vanderbilt University is located and where Fischer now teaches. [BBC, 11/12/1987; Washington Post, 1998] Fischer will later describe Smith’s injuries as “nasty lacerations,” and will say, “She made a full recovery, but it was very traumatic for her.” The bomb itself consists of smokeless powder and a large number of match heads. The package has a false return address, stating it comes from LeRoy Bearnson, a professor of electrical engineering at Utah’s Brigham Young University. Bearnson will later say, “I suppose the guy didn’t care which way it went or who got blown up.” FBI agent Oliver “Buck” Revell, who takes part in early phases of the bomb investigation, will later say: “He might pick out an individual, but the person was still a symbolic target to him. I suspect that once he targeted the university research system, it didn’t matter that much who received it. I suspect he felt the country would pick up the symbolism.” The bombing will later be shown to be the work of Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, the so-called “Unabomber” (see April 3, 1996). When Fischer, along with the rest of the country, learns of Kaczynski’s identity, he will try to find connections between himself and Kaczynski, and come up with only the most tenuous of relationships: Fischer studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) while Kaczynski studied at nearby Harvard, and Fischer may have shared a Harvard math class with Kaczynski. He also spent time in Salt Lake City, a city with which Kaczynski is familiar. “The agents made it very clear that I was the target,” Fischer will later say. “I still have no idea why, except my feeling is that he chose names at random with certain associations.” [Washington Post, 4/14/1996]

According to investigative journalists Joe and Susan Trento, the arrest of former CIA agent Edwin Wilson, who was involved in business dealings with Libya, has serious consequences for US terrorism policy: “Throughout the 1980s the United States used its intelligence services to divert blame from Iran and Hezbollah onto Libya as part of its entanglement in Iran-Contra with the so-called moderate Iranians with whom the Reagan administration dealt. Ever since international arms dealer Edwin Wilson had been captured and imprisoned in the early 1980s, American intelligence and the White House had labeled Libya a rogue nation, and Libyan dictator Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi a terrorist leader. The intelligence operation went so far that the United States actually recruited a gang of Lebanese criminals to pretend to be a cell of Libyan-backed terrorists conducting violent acts around the world.… These activities, all choreographed by the CIA, were fed to allies such as West Germany as authentic intelligence that implicated Libya for terrorists acts that were either fake or were, in reality, authorized by Iran and carried out by Hezbollah and other surrogate groups.” Benefit to Iran - This policy apparently benefits Iran: “The Reagan administration had given the Iranians plenty of cards to play. The biggest card was the help it had provided making Libya seem like the ultimate source of all terrorist acts.… When the Reagan administration turned Libya into a vicious terrorist nation operating throughout Europe, that gave Iran the perfect opening for retribution.” No action against Hezbollah - In addition, it prevents the US from taking action against Hezbollah, even though Hezbollah is killing Americans: “Because of the Iran-Contra scandal—the selling of weapons to Iran to fund the war in Central America—the Reagan administration ended up protecting Iran’s number one terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, while at the same time Hezbollah’s terrorists were killing and kidnapping hundreds of Americans. While secretly working with the Iranian government, the Reagan administration manipulated intelligence to blame Libya for terrorist attacks for which Hezbollah was responsible. During the 1980s Hezbollah killed and terrorized hundreds of Americans in Beirut, bombing the US Marine barracks, blowing up the CIA station, and killing State Department employees in a bomb attack on the US embassy. Hezbollah did all this with the help of local militia leaders whom the United States relied on as its secret conduits to Iran for its sale of weapons.” [Trento and Trento, 2006, pp. xvi, 64-5]

An electrical engineering and computer science professor with the University of California at Berkeley, Diogenes Angelakos, picks up what he believes is a turpentine can, left in a common room in the computer science building during construction work. The can, a green, gallon-sized container, has wires dangling from it and a clock-dial attached to the wires. The device is a pipe bomb. It explodes, temporarily blinding Angelakos and severely burning his right hand. [BBC, 11/12/1987; Washington Post, 11/27/1993; Washington Post, 4/14/1996; Washington Post, 1998] The injuries to his hand and arm prevent him from effectively caring for his wife Helen in her final days; she will die a month later of terminal cancer. “I went to her funeral with my arm in a sling,” Angelakos will later recall. [Washington Post, 11/27/1993] The bombing will later be shown to be the work of Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, the so-called “Unabomber” (see April 3, 1996). Kaczynski once worked as a professor at UC-Berkeley.

President Reagan agrees “in principle” to send a small number of Marines to Lebanon as a peacekeeping force to keep a modicum of order in the ongoing civil war. The Marines will arrive in Lebanon on August 25, and will find themselves in the middle of bloody factional fighting between several Lebanese groups as well as Israeli invasion forces. [PBS, 2000] In October 1983, 241 Marines will die when a suicide bomber attacks their barracks (see April 18-October 23, 1983).

Youssef Nada. [Source: Zuma Press/ NewsCom]In November 2001, Swiss investigators will search the home of Youssef Nada, the leader of Al Taqwa Bank, a Swiss bank that had just been shut down by the US and the UN for alleged ties to al-Qaeda, Hamas, and other radical militant groups (see November 7, 2001). Nada and other Al Taqwa directors are prominent members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Newsweek will say, “The Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928 as a religious and quasi-political counterweight to the corrupt and increasingly decadent royalist and colonial governments dominating the Islamic world, always has had two faces: one a peaceful public, proselytizing and social-welfare oriented wing; the other a clandestine, paramilitary wing.… Intelligence and law-enforcement officials say that while some branches and elements of the Brotherhood, such as the offshoots now operating in Egypt and Syria, have pledged to work for their goal of a worldwide Islamic caliphate using peaceful means and electoral politics, the Brotherhood has also spun off many—if not most—of the more violent local and international groups devoted to the cause of Islamic holy war.” Such offshoots will include al-Qaeda and Hamas. [Newsweek, 12/24/2004] Swiss investigators discover a 14-page document from December 1982 entitled “The Project.” Nada claims not to know who wrote the document or how he came to have it, and he says he disagrees with most of the contents. The document details a strategic plan whose ultimate goal is “the establishment of the reign of God over the entire world.” The document begins, “This report presents a global vision of an international strategy of Islamic policy.” It recommends to “study of the centers of power locally and worldwide, and the possibilities of placing them under influence,” to contact and support new holy war movements anywhere in the world, to support holy war in Palestine, and “nurtur[e] the sentiment of rancor with regard to Jews.” Swiss investigators who analyze the document will later write that the strategy aims to achieve “a growing influence over the Muslim world. It is pointed out that the [Muslim Brotherhood] doesn’t have to act in the name of the Brotherhood, but can infiltrate existing entities. They can thus avoid being located and neutralized.” The document also advocates creating a network of religious, educational, and charitable institutions in Europe and the US to increase influence there. [Unknown, 12/1982; Le Temps (Geneva), 10/6/2005]

A young Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. [Source: Public domain]Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar emerges as the most powerful of ISI’s mujaheddin clients, just as Rep. Charlie Wilson (D-TX) and CIA Director William Casey, along with Saudi Intelligence Minister Prince Turki al-Faisal, are pouring “hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of new and more lethal supplies into ISI warehouses” (see 1983). Hekmatyar is among the most ruthless and extreme of the Afghan Islamic warlords. [Coll, 2004, pp. 119] Casey is said to particularly like Hekmatyar because they share a goal of extending the fighting beyond Afghanistan into the Soviet Union itself. [Dreyfuss, 2005, pp. 268] Hekmatyar receives about half of all the CIA’s covert weapons directed at Afghanistan despite being a known major drug trafficker (see 1982-1991). He develops close ties with bin Laden by 1984 while continuing to receive large amounts of assistance from the CIA and ISI (see 1984).

CSA members outside their Arkansas compound. Some CSA members also belong to the Elohim City community. [Source: GifS (.com)]Three white supremacists living in the Elohim City, Oklahoma, compound (see 1973 and After) visit Oklahoma City and make plans to blow up the Murrah Federal Building there. The three are: James Ellison, the leader of the Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord (CSA) who will be arrested in 1985 after a four-day standoff with federal authorities; Kerry Noble; and Richard Wayne Snell, who will be executed for murdering a black police officer and a businessman he erroneously believed to be Jewish (see 9:00 p.m. April 19, 1995). All three men have close ties to the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations (see Early 1970s). The evidence of their plan is released during the investigation of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), and is collated by former US prosecutor Steven N. Snyder, who once worked out of the Fort Smith, Arkansas District Attorney’s office. The plan involves parking a van or trailer in front of the building and exploding it with rockets detonated by a timer. Snyder will come across the information on the bombing plot while preparing for the trial of a sedition case against a 14-man group of white supremacists, 10 of whom are charged with planning to overthrow the government. (All 14 will be acquitted in a 1988 trial—see Late 1987 - April 8, 1998.) Snyder will get the information from Ellison, who provides information to him as part of his role as chief witness for the prosecution. The other defendants in the trial, many of whom are believed to have had some connection to the bombing plot, will be Richard Butler, the head of Aryan Nations; Robert E. Miles, a former Klansman who heads the Mountain Church of Jesus Christ the Saviour in Cohoctah, Michigan; and Louis R. Beam Jr., a former grand dragon of the Texas Ku Klux Klan and “ambassador at large” of the Aryan Nations. Ellison will tell Snyder that in July 1983, he attends a meeting of extremist groups in Hayden Lake, Idaho, the location of the Aryan Nations headquarters, where he informs them of the death of fellow white supremacist Gordon Kahl in a gun battle with law enforcement agents in Arkansas (see March 13 - June 3, 1983). Snyder’s notes of Ellison’s statement read, “Kahl was the catalyst that made everyone come forth and change the organizations from thinkers to doers.” According to Ellison, the leaders of the various supremacist groups discuss how to overthrow the federal government, using as a sourcebook the novel The Turner Diaries (see 1978), which tells of a successful move by white supremacists to overthrow the government and then commit genocide against Jews and blacks. Ellison will tell Snyder that he volunteers to assassinate federal officials in Arkansas as part of the plot. The leaders discuss blowing up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, other federal buildings, and the Dallas office of a Jewish organization. According to Ellison’s trial testimony, in October 1983 Snell and another participant, Steve Scott, “asked me to design a rocket launcher that could be used to destroy these buildings from a distance.” Of Snell, Ellison will testify: “On one of the trips when I was with Wayne, he took me to some of the buildings and asked me to go in the building and check the building out. This kind of thing.” Ellison will tell Snyder that at Snell’s request, he surveills the Murrah Building to assess what it would take to damage and destroy it. He makes preliminary sketches and drawings. According to the preliminary plans, rocket launchers are to be “placed in a trailer or a van so that it could be driven up to a given spot, parked there, and a timed detonating device could be triggered so that the driver could walk away and leave the vehicle set in position, and he would have time to clear the area before any of the rockets launched.… And I was asked to make it so it would fit in either a trailer or a van or a panel truck.” Synder will later say that Snell is embittered towards the government because of the IRS, which took him to court and seized property from him for failure to pay taxes. But, Snyder will add, “you can’t be sure about any of this, because a federal raid, to a lot of these people, is any time the postman brings the mail.” Ellison will be taken into custody after a four-day standoff with state and federal authorities in 1985, only convinced to surrender after white supremacist Robert Millar talks him into giving up (see 1973 and After). Ellison will be convicted of racketeering charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He will enter the federal witness protection program until completing his parole and leaving the program on April 21, 1995, two days after the Oklahoma City bombing. [New York Times, 5/20/1995; Anti-Defamation League, 8/9/2002; Nicole Nichols, 2003]

After being recruited by Abdullah Azzam, an Arab Afghan leader and Osama bin Laden’s mentor, Essam al Ridi travels to Pakistan to join the mujaheddin fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan. He works for the mujaheddin for about 18 months, mostly as a purchaser of equipment abroad. He buys two sets of scuba diving equipment and six range finders in Britain, as well as night vision goggles and six night vision scopes from the US. He also purchases video equipment and batteries, and acquires equipment in Japan, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Al Ridi will later say, as a witness in a US trial, that he travels “extensively almost every 15 days to 20 days” and that he has so many stamps his passport is nearly full by 1985. Al Ridi leaves Asia to return to the US in late 1984 or early 1985, apparently due to an argument about Osama bin Laden’s role in the jihad, but he will continue to send equipment to the mujaheddin. For example, he will later purchase assassination rifles for the jihad, apparently with the CIA’s knowledge, but it is unclear whether the CIA knows about these earlier transactions (see Early 1989). [United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1/14/2001]

Gordon Kahl, an anti-tax protester, Posse Comitatus member (see 1967 - 1973 and 1975 - 1981), and federal fugitive who killed two US Marshals in a February shootout in North Dakota (see February 13, 1983 and After), quickly gains national prominence as the media begins reporting on the fatal confrontation. Most media reports only identify him as a “tax protester,” failing to mention his Posse Comitatus membership and often leaving out the involvement of his son, Yorie Kahl, and two other Posse members who helped kill the marshals and wound three others. CBS news anchor Dan Rather goes farther than most of his colleagues, describing Kahl as “a radical survivalist, a fanatic, [and] an ultraright-wing tax protester” whom authorities describe as “a killer.” It does not take long for Posse Comitatus leader James Wickstrom (see 1984) to begin contacting the media himself, proudly announcing Kahl’s Posse connections and announcing: “The Posse in Wisconsin is on standby alert. All communications are locked in.” The government has, in pursuing Kahl, “declared war on the people of this country,” Wickstrom tells reporters. He adds that his organization has some three million members, though the FBI estimates its membership at closer to a few thousand; the number is hard to pin down, as many anti-tax protesters (see 1951-1967, December 9, 1968 and After, 1970-1972, 1974, 1976-1978, 1980, and Early 1980s) have at least some affiliation with the loosely organized group. As the FBI and local law enforcement officials mount a nationwide manhunt, Wickstrom, with some success, tries to turn the story away from Kahl’s murder of the two marshals and towards the story of the Posse’s anti-tax beliefs. “What we have here is a gentleman who is now being pursued in North Dakota on a setup to shut his mouth because the American people are waking up by the tens of thousands across this country, realizing that we have been duped by a private central bank,” he declares to a Milwaukee reporter. He makes an appearance on the nationally televised Phil Donahue Show, where he claims that his “heart really goes out to the US Marshals and the children of those marshals and their families.” Asked by Donahue if he would join Kahl’s wife in asking Kahl to turn himself in, Wickstrom changes the subject, arguing that Kahl’s civil rights have been violated and the real issues are farm foreclosures, corrupt courts, the income tax, the Federal Reserve, unemployment, foreign workers, and Jews. In 2002, author Daniel Levitas will write, “Phil Donahue’s dialogue with Wickstrom was oftentimes inane, and though he clearly didn’t agree with his guest, he gave Wickstrom a tremendous platform to spread his ideas.” Wickstrom will use his media appearances to mount a longshot candidacy for governor of Wisconsin. [Levitas, 2002, pp. 201-204] Four months later, Kahl will die in a bloody standoff with police officers in Arkansas (see March 13 - June 3, 1983).

Gordon Kahl, an anti-tax protester, Posse Comitatus member (see 1967 - 1973 and 1975 - 1981), and federal fugitive who killed two US Marshals in a February shootout in North Dakota (see February 13, 1983 and After), arrives at a farm in Mountain Home, Arkansas. The farm owner, Arthur Russell, is a member of another white supremacist organization, the Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord (CSA), and willingly hides Kahl, who is facing a second warrant for his arrest issued March 11. Kahl spends two months hiding at Russell’s farmhouse, studying the Bible, watching television, and spending time with Russell’s daughter Karen. While Kahl is in hiding, his family and colleagues in the Posse who were involved in the shootout are tried in May 1983; his son Yorie Kahl and colleague Scott Faul are convicted of second-degree murder and six other related charges; David Broer is convicted of conspiracy and of harboring a fugitive; and his wife Joan Kahl is acquitted of conspiracy and harboring a fugitive. FBI Learns of Kahl's Whereabouts - In late May, after the convictions, Kahl leaves the Russell farm with his CSA friend Leonard Ginter and Ginter’s wife Norma. Ginter, an unemployed carpenter, belongs to a small anti-government group called Americans for Constitutional Enforcement, but is not too ideologically rigid not to accept food stamps for himself and his wife. Kahl and the Ginters drive to Smithville, Arkansas, a tiny Ozark town where the Ginters have a concrete house with a vegetable patch and a chicken pen. After Kahl leaves, Karen Russell calls the FBI and informs them of his whereabouts. Final Confrontation - On June 3, FBI agent James Blasingame organizes a group of US Marshals and local lawmen at the Lawrence County courthouse to plan how best to apprehend Kahl and the Ginters. Twenty-eight law enforcement officials, including 15 US Marshals, six FBI agents, three state police officers, and four county lawmen descend on the Ginter home. While en route, they encounter Ginter, driving away from the house in a car with a rifle in the backseat; he has a cocked and loaded pistol in his lap. Ginter is apprehended without incident, but lies to the police, saying Kahl is not at the house. Unfortunately, the officials believe his story. At the officials’ request, Ginter drives back to the house, with five officials behind. Ginter parks his car, as do the officials; Ginter gets out and shouts: “Norma, come out. The FBI wants to talk to you.” He emphasizes the word “FBI” as loudly as possible, alerting Kahl to their presence. Norma Ginter comes out and is escorted away. Lawrence County Sheriff Gene Matthews, departing from the plan, enters the house through a utility room off the garage, with US Marshal James Hall and Arkansas State Police investigator Ed Fitzpatrick following him. Kahl is waiting in the kitchen, armed with a formidable Ruger Mini-14 assault rifle. When Matthews enters the kitchen, the two men see each other and open fire simultaneously; Kahl wounds Matthews fatally with two shots to the chest and Matthews kills Kahl with a bullet to the head. Hall and Fitzpatrick, unsure of what has happened, begin firing wildly, striking Matthews with buckshot. Matthews manages to get to a police cruiser before collapsing, and gasps, “I got him.” But the other officials are unsure if Kahl is actually dead, and if others may be in the house as well. They open fire on the house and let loose a barrage of tear gas. They then set the house afire with a can of diesel fuel; the fire ignites several thousand rounds of ammunition stored inside the house and the house is all but gutted by the conflagration. Eventually, officials are able to enter the house and find what remains of Kahl’s body in the kitchen. Posse Comitatus leader William Potter Gale, asked by a reporter about Kahl’s death, says that Kahl was murdered for helping farmers and belonging to the group. Another Posse member, Richard Wayne Snell, will later claim that Matthews had been killed by FBI agents after interrupting them during their torture of Kahl. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001; Levitas, 2002, pp. 217-220; Anti-Defamation League, 2011]Episode Destabilizes Posse Comitatus - The Kahl episode receives national attention and helps destabilize the Posse Comitatus (see 1984). The media quickly learns of Kahl’s racist and anti-Semitic past, and reprints a letter he wrote the same night he killed the marshals and later sent to reporters. In his letter, Kahl announced that it was time to begin killing Jews: “We are engaged in a struggle to the death between the people of the Kingdom of God, and the Kingdom of Satan. We are a conquered and occupied nation; conquered and occupied by the Jews, and their hundreds or maybe thousands of front organizations doing their un-Godly work. They have two objectives in their goal of ruling the world. Destroy Christianity and the White race. Neither can be accomplished by itself, they stand or fall together.” In an attempt to exonerate his son and Faul, Kahl took credit for all the fatal shots. Kahl’s espousal of violence and anti-Semitism causes a backlash when some Posse Comitatus members attempt to portray him as a martyr. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001; Levitas, 2002, pp. 217-220]

Vice President George Bush hosts a secret meeting with his foreign policy adviser, Donald Gregg (see 1982), and former CIA agent Felix Rodriguez. The meeting is the first impetus of the National Security Council (NSC)‘s initiative to secretly, and illegally, fund the Nicaraguan Contras in an attempt to overthrow that country’s socialist government. Rodriguez agrees to run a central supply depot at Ilopango Air Base in El Salvador. In a memo to NSC chief Robert McFarlane, Gregg will note that the plan is rooted in the experience of running “anti-Vietcong operations in Vietnam from 1970-1972.” Gregg will also note that “Felix Rodriguez, who wrote the attached plan, both worked for me in Vietnam and carried out the actual operations outlined above.” [Spartacus Schoolnet, 12/28/2007] Rodriguez and Gregg, along with others such as Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis (see April-June 1972), were part of the CIA’s “Operation 40,” an assassination squad that operated in Cuba and the Caribbean during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Rodriguez tried at least once, in 1961, to assassinate Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. In 1967, Rodriguez interrogated and executed South American revolutionary Che Guevara. He was part of the infamous and shadowy Operation Phoenix during the Vietnam War. [Spartacus Schoolnet, 1/17/2008]

The October 1983 bombing of US Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. [Source: US Marine Corps.]In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, and US Marines were sent to Lebanon as a peacekeeping force in September 1982. On April 18, 1983, the US embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, is bombed by a suicide truck attack, killing 63 people. On October 23, 1983, a Marine barracks in Beirut is bombed by another suicide truck attack, killing 241 Marines. In February 1984, the US military will depart Lebanon. The radical militant group Islamic Jihad will take credit for both attacks (note that this not the group led by Ayman al-Zawahiri). The group is believed to be linked to Hezbollah. Prior to this year, attacks of this type were rare. But the perceived success of these attacks in getting the US to leave Lebanon will usher in a new era of suicide attacks around the world. The next two years in particular will see a wave of such attacks in the Middle East, many of them committed by the radical militant group Hezbollah. [US Congress, 7/24/2003; US Congress, 7/24/2003 ] The Beirut bombings will also inspire bin Laden to believe that the US can be defeated by suicide attacks. For instance, he will say in a 1998 interview, “We have seen in the last decade the decline of the American government and the weakness of the American soldier who is ready to wage Cold Wars and unprepared to fight long wars. This was proven in Beirut when the Marines fled after two explosions.” [ABC News, 5/28/1998] In 1994, bin Laden will hold a meeting with a top Hezbollah leader (see Shortly After February 1994), and arrange for some of his operatives to be trained in the truck bombing techniques that had been used in Beirut. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 48]

555 Grove Street, Herndon, Virginia. This is the location of the SAAR Foundation/Safa Group and many related businesses. [Source: Paul Sperry]The SAAR Foundation is incorporated in Herndon, Virginia, just outside Washington. It will become an umbrella organization for a cluster of over 100 charities, think tanks, and businesses known as the SAAR network. In 2002, the US government will raid the SAAR network looking for ties to the Al Taqwa Bank and the Muslim Brotherhood (see March 20, 2002). [Farah, 2004, pp. 153]

Bin Laden first works for Maktab al-Khidamat from this building in Peshawar, a former British government guesthouse. [Source: PBS]Bin Laden moves to Peshawar, a Pakistani town bordering Afghanistan, and helps run a front organization for the mujaheddin known as Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK), which funnels money, arms, and fighters from the outside world into the Afghan war. [New Yorker, 1/24/2000] “MAK [is] nurtured by Pakistan’s state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the CIA’s primary conduit for conducting the covert war against Moscow’s occupation.” [MSNBC, 8/24/1998] Bin Laden becomes closely tied to the warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and greatly strengthens Hekmatyar’s opium smuggling operations. [Le Monde (Paris), 9/14/2001] Hekmatyar, who also has ties with bin Laden, the CIA, and drug running, has been called “an ISI stooge and creation.” [Asia Times, 11/15/2001] MAK is also known as Al-Kifah and its branch in New York is called the Al-Kifah Refugee Center. This branch will play a pivotal role in the 1993 WTC bombing and also has CIA ties (see January 24, 1994).

Osama bin Laden, his mentor Abdullah Azzam, and Afghan warlord Abdul Rasul Sayyaf meet two unnamed men in Peshawar, Pakistan. The two men are “supposed to be from somewhere in Europe” and cannot speak Arabic. As a result, Essam al Ridi, an Egyptian who has lived in the US, attends the meeting as a translator. Al Ridi will later say that the two men speak English “with an accent” and that he was invited to the meeting to translate between the men on the one hand and Sayyaf and Azzam on the other, indicating that bin Laden did not need a translator and could speak English. This is the first of several meetings between bin Laden and al Ridi, who purchases equipment for anti-Soviet fighters (see Early 1983-Late 1984 and Early 1989). [United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1/14/2001]

By 1984, huge amounts of arms and ammunition for the mujaheddin fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan are pouring into Pakistan. These weapons are funded by the CIA and Saudi government, and generally come into the port of Karachi. The criminal BCCI bank has an enforcement arm nicknamed the “Black Network.” Time magazine reporters Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynne will later describe it as “a Karachi-based cadre of bank operatives, paramilitary units, spies, and enforcers who handled BCCI’s darkest operations around the globe and trafficked in bribery and corruption.” By 1984, BCCI and its Black Network takes effective control of Karachi’s port, dominating Pakistan’s customs service there with bribery and intimidation. BCCI is thus in a position to dominate the flow of supplies to the mujaheddin. Pakistan’s military handles the flow of weapons from Karachi to the Afghan border, but once there the supplies have to be carried by mules to reach the mujaheddin fighting in remote Afghan mountain ranges. BCCI controls this part of the supply chain as well. Sometimes BCCI personnel simply transport the supplies across Afghanistan to Iran and then sell them there for a profit. [Beaty and Gwynne, 1993, pp. 66, 315-316] The US government is aware of BCCI’s support role and cooperates with it. For instance, in 1987 USAID asks BCCI to buy 1,000 more mules to help the mujaheddin. [Los Angeles Times, 9/3/1991] At almost every step of the way, BCCI takes a cut of the profits and often steals some of the supplies. [Beaty and Gwynne, 1993, pp. 66, 315-316]

Detective Sergeant Peter Caram, the head of the New York Port Authority’s Terrorist Intelligence Unit, has been directed by the assistant superintendent of the Port Authority Police Department to compile a report on the vulnerability of the WTC to a terrorist attack. Having previously worked at the WTC Command, Caram has exclusive knowledge of some of the center’s security weaknesses. On this day he issues his four-page report, titled “Terrorist Threat and Targeting Assessment: World Trade Center.” It looks at the reasoning behind why the WTC might be singled out for attack, and identifies three areas of particular vulnerability: the perimeter of the WTC complex, the truck dock entrance, and the subgrade area (the lower floors below ground level). Caram specifically mentions that terrorists could use a car bomb in the subgrade area—a situation similar to what occurs in the 1993 bombing (see February 26, 1993). [Caram, 2001, pp. 5, 84-85; New York County Supreme Court, 1/20/2004] This is the first of several reports during the 1980s, identifying the WTC as a potential terrorist target.

Secretary of State George Shultz announces that the State Department has designated Iran as a state sponsor of international terrorism. [PBS, 2000] As of mid-2008, Iran is still designated as a terrorism sponsor.

Peter Goldmark. [Source: Environmental Defense Fund]Peter Goldmark, the executive director of the New York Port Authority, is concerned that, in light of terrorist attacks occurring around the world (see April 18-October 23, 1983), Port Authority facilities, including the World Trade Center, could become terrorist targets. [Associated Press, 9/28/2005; New York Times, 10/27/2005] He therefore creates a unit called the Office of Special Planning (OSP) to evaluate the vulnerabilities of all Port Authority facilities and present recommendations to minimize the risks of attack. The OSP is staffed by Port Authority police and civilian workers, and is headed by Edward O’Sullivan, who has experience in counterterrorism from earlier careers in the Navy and Marine Corps. In carrying out its work, the OSP will consult with such US agencies as the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, NSA, and Defense Department. It will also consult with security officials from other countries that have gained expertise in combating terrorism, such as England, France, Italy, and Israel. [Glanz and Lipton, 2004, pp. 226; New York County Supreme Court, 1/20/2004] According to Peter Caram, head of the Port Authority’s Terrorist Intelligence Unit, the OSP will develop “an expertise unmatched in the United States.” [Caram, 2001, pp. 12] In 1985 it will issue a report called “Counter-Terrorism Perspectives: The World Trade Center” (see November 1985). [New York Court of Appeals, 2/16/1999] It will exist until 1987. [Village Voice, 1/5/2000]

The Office of Special Planning (OSP), a unit set up by the New York Port Authority to assess the security of its facilities against terrorist attacks (see Early 1984), spends four to six months studying the World Trade Center. It examines the center’s design through looking at photographs, blueprints, and plans. It brings in experts such as the builders of the center, plus experts in sabotage and explosives, and has them walk through the WTC to identify any areas of vulnerability. According to New York Times reporters James Glanz and Eric Lipton, when Edward O’Sullivan, head of the OSP, looks at WTC security, he finds “one vulnerability after another. Explosive charges could be placed at key locations in the power system. Chemical or biological agents could be dropped into the coolant system. The Hudson River water intake could be blown up. Someone might even try to infiltrate the large and vulnerable subterranean realms of the World Trade Center site.” In particular, “There was no control at all over access to the underground, two-thousand-car parking garage.” However, O’Sullivan consults “one of the trade center’s original structural engineers, Les Robertson, on whether the towers would collapse because of a bomb or a collision with a slow-moving airplane.” He is told there is “little likelihood of a collapse no matter how the building was attacked.” [Glanz and Lipton, 2004, pp. 227; New York County Supreme Court, 1/20/2004] The OSP will issue its report called “Counter-Terrorism Perspectives: The World Trade Center” late in 1985 (see November 1985).

Lt. Col. William Buckley. [Source: Arlington Cemetery (.net)]William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, is kidnapped by militants who claim to be part of a mysterious organization they call Islamic Jihad. Buckley will die in June 1985, after 15 months of captivity, neglect, and torture. The CIA will not acknowledge his death until 1987. His body will not be returned to the US until December 1991. Buckley’s captivity, and that of at least five other American hostages, will be cited as one of the precipitating factors in the Iran-Contra arms deals. [PBS, 2000; Arlington Cemetery (.net), 4/23/2006] (Note: Some sources cite the date of his capture as March 16, not March 3.) [New York Times, 11/19/1987] It remains unclear exactly who Buckley’s captors are. This “Islamic Jihad” organization is not the same group as is later led by Sunni militant Ayman al-Zawahiri, nor is it the Palestinian organization of the same name. In the 2001 book Sacred Rage, author Robin B. Wright notes that a group spokesman claims, “We are neither Iranians, Syrians nor Palestinians, but Muslims who follow the precepts of the Koran.” Wright calls the organization “a mysterious group about which nothing was known” except for its “pro-Iranian” ideology, probably “more of an information network for a variety of cells or movements rather than a cohesive or structured independent group of extremists.” [Wright, 2001, pp. 73, 85] New Yorker reporter Jeffrey Goldberg later writes that he believes the organization is either a precursor to the Lebanese militant organization Hezbollah or a more violent adjunct to that organization. [New Yorker, 10/14/2002]

National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane asks US government agencies to reassess their policies towards Iran. The government currently considers Iran a sponsor of terrorism (see January 20, 1984) and officially has no dealings with its government. [New York Times, 11/19/1987]

Rep. Charlie Wilson. [Source: Sam Houston State University]Primarily due to the pressure from Rep. Charlie Wilson (D-TX), the CIA’s budget for the Afghan covert operations is tripled in a matter of a few weeks. The CIA initially resisted accepting the funds, but according to William Casey’s executive assistant Robert Gates, “Wilson just steamrolled [CIA Near East Division Chief Charles]—and the CIA for that matter.” [Crile, 2003, pp. 102] Richard Clarke, a State Department analyst who later will become counterterrorism “tsar” for Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, will claim, “Unclassified studies show that [covert aid] grew from $35 million in 1982 to $600 million in 1987. With few exceptions, the funds bought materiel that was given to Afghan fighters by [the ISI]. CIA personnel were not authorized to enter Afghanistan, except rarely.” [Clarke, 2004, pp. 50]

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